IT REVISITED AND REDONE
by J7339
Summary: My twisted version. Lucas Wolenczak is Bill Denborough through the whole story. Crossover between the book the movie and my own twisted sense of reality. REVISED AND NEW MATERIAL ADDED !
1. Turning Back the Clock

**IT - REVISITED AND REDONE**

**By JULES**

**Author Notes: Sorry, but there are a number of explanations before I get into the actual story.**

**Before anybody flies off the handle about plagiarism, while I know _KaitlynRose_ has recently done a wonderful job on her own version. I asked her personally before I started writing this idea. I was insanely jealous when she posted her story, because I have always wanted to do a IT and SEAQUEST crossover. **

**However, for my story, Lucas Wolenczak is for all intensive purposes BILL DENBROUGH at any age. I always like the idea of using Jonathan Brandis for the younger part in the movie and wanted to continue that theme on in my story. I always wanted the SeaQuest crew to see what happened to Lucas's character in the movie. (Yeah I know I am totally nuts right?)**

**Okay, the SeaQuest crew is from the second series plus Kristen Westphalen (don't know why) and the story starts in the year 2020. Bill Denbrough and Lucas Wolenczak are 17 years old as are all of the LOSERS CLUB (Hope fully I will explain later on how they got to be young again).**

**There will be lots of little author notes throughout this story so as to not totally confuse you about where and when they are. They will travel from the year 2019 back to 1959 and go forward from there.**

**I have taken a lot of scenes and words from both the book and the movie. I have been a Stephen King fan for a long time and just love his stuff. I am not making any money on this story (and I expect that you will be all sending the little men with the white coats around after you have read it all).**

**Hopefully I have just taken the movie and book and added them together with some of my own ideas to make a complete story.**

**Please read this with an open mind and believe me when I say that this story was only ever concocted in my own depraved mind after reading the book and seeing Jonathan Brandis in SeaQuest.**

**If you don't recognize the characters at first, please bear with me. Most of the main characters are not explained properly until after they go back to 1959.**

**But to start this story off I need to mention them a lot earlier than that in the story.**

**HOPE YOU READ AND LIKE IT - PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW I WENT.**

_And so the story begins..._

Place: SEAQUEST Deep Sea Vessel

Year: 2019

Where: 12 days out from docking at UEO Headquarters and Shore Leave for the crew.

For Lucas Wolenczak, this day started out being one he had been waiting for over the past week and a half. It was the second last week aboard the SeaQuest before ten days of sun filled days of rest and relaxation. He wouldn't have to answer to anybody.

No phones, no video links, no Commanding Officer asking him if he had his task completed yet. These ten days were going to be great.

Lucas had organized with his bunk mate Seaman Tony Piccolo had all of their days planned out. They had prepaid to stay in a dingy hotel somewhere Tony knew about. They were going to check out all of the low life establishments they could during this leave.

Tony has assured Lucas that everything was taken care of and all they needed to do was turn up.

Lucas groaned slightly at the idea that Tony had organized most of their vacation, but is was better than the alternative of staying by himself. Twelve more shifts on the Bridge to go and they could say _adios_ for two weeks.

Commander Ford was being his usual military stickler for remaining focused on the correct procedures and matters that needed to be carried out before they berthed at Fort Gore.

Lucas was seated at his console trying to keep his mind on the job. He had Ford's voice droning is his ears but he still found his mind wandering to other activities.

Suddenly, the entire room seemed to go completely silent to Lucas. He looked up briefly just to see if Commander Ford had actually finished speaking or left the Bridge. He hadn't done either. He was still dishing out orders and directives. Lucas could see his mouth working but he couldn't hear any sound coming out.

Lucas rubbed the inside of his ears just to check they were blocked or something. But when he noticed the rest of the crew, he couldn't hear any noise from them either. It was strange, he could see them moving about and talking to each other, but he couldn't hear a thing.

Sometimes when the submarine was coming up from the great depths below, you could get a popping or a ringing sensation in your ears as your body adjusted to the difference in pressure. He was about to ask if anybody was having problems with the ears when he heard another sound entirely.

He heard a voice coming from the vid-screen on the Bridge that he hadn't heard it in a very long time. The voice wasn't talking, it was laughing. And Lucas was sure that he would never forget that laugh no matter where he heard it.

He felt the blood drain from his face abruptly as he heard that cackle. It looked up at the screen with absolute fear written all over his face.

_It was Pennywise_.

Just as suddenly as it had come, the laughter was gone again. Somehow Lucas knew that a new cycle of terror and murder had begun again.

His fellow crew member's must have noticed his behaviour as well he now assumed. They all had apparently not heard the laughter. No that was only meant for him. But they were all looking at his pale features and the fear in his eyes and wondering what was wrong.

"You feel alright, Mr Wolenczak?" Ford asked trying to keep up the appearances of protocol, even during the last couple of weeks of the tour.

Lucas looked up at the dark skinned Commander but his voice failed to find the words to speak. He couldn't make any sound come out of his mouth to answer the question.

Commander Ford was now genuinely worried about the young man and forgot all about protocol and proper addressing of crew members.

He walked over to Lucas and gently grabbed the ashen youth and asked him again, "Are you alright, Lucas?"

Lucas could now feel everybody's eyes on him. He got up hurriedly from his post and brushed away Ford's grip and headed off the Bridge towards his cabin. In his haste, he failed to notice Captain Bridger walking onto the Bridge.

The teenager almost ran into the man. When he noticed his mistake he simply adjusted his direction of travel and kept going. He didn't look back at the puzzled faces that watched his back. He just needed to get out of there and take a breath of air again. His fear was threatening to overwhelm him and betray the horrible secret he had been carrying around with him.

"That was Lucas?" Bridger stated to Commander Ford rather than asking a question.

"Yes, but I don't know what's wrong with him. One minute he seems fine, doing his work as usual, the next he looked as though he was going to faint right on the spot," Ford explained.

Bridger had seen a little haste in Lucas's retreat from the Bridge but didn't think much of it. Most teenagers were always in a hurray to get somewhere.

"Has he mentioned anything to you about not feeling well?" Ford asked Bridger.

"No, exactly the opposite, all I have been hearing is his excitement about what he and Tony had got planned for shore leave after next week, " Bridger said.

"I'd better go and check on him. You have the Bridge Commander."

"Aye, Sir," Ford said as he saluted his superior officer. When he looked back at his crew all he got was questioning looks, but he just shrugged his shoulders signaling that he didn't know what was wrong with Lucas.

Bridger went after Lucas.

Lucas had run out of the Bridge and towards the Moon Pool area. He was leaning over the rim of the pool, with his hands in the water. His mind was somewhere else completely.

Bridger made sure that Lucas was aware of his presence before spoke to him. He didn't want to scare the teenager and have him take off again.

"Uhmmm," he coughed loudly, "Are you alright Lucas?"

Lucas turned around and had a distant look in his eyes. "Yeah I'm okay," he lied.

"Want to tell me what just happened on the Bridge?" Nathan asked.

"Nothing happened, I was just starting to feel a little cramped up in there that's all. I needed to escape and get some fresh air." The answer sounded plausible enough but he didn't know if the Captain would buy a word of it.

Bridger didn't really believe him, but knew better than to push the emotionally high strung teenager. He was patient enough. In time if something was bothering Lucas, he was pretty sure he knew the boy well enough for him to approach him and talk when he was ready.

Tony Piccolo had been taking some time off and swimming in the pool with Darwin. The pair had ventured out for a short swim in the ocean outside the SeaQuest. Tony didn't have to wear a wet suit due to his genetically engineered gills. He wore only a pair of lycra long legged diving trousers and flippers on his feet.

The man and the dolphin approached the pair standing at the edge of the Moon Pool. Tony waved and started to swim towards the pair. He was holding something in his hand.

Something that Darwin and he had found floating around in the water outside.

As the pair got closer Lucas could see that Tony was holding a piece of paper or something to that effect in his hand. Darwin was trying to knock it free from the man's hands and play tag some more with it.

"Wanna play with my new toy too, Lucas?" Tony asked with a smirk. He held the object out a little more for Lucas to get a better look at it.

Lucas hitched in his breath in horror and shock when he recognized what the object was. He grabbed it out of Tony's hand and clasped it too his chest tightly.

It was a small paper boat made of newspaper. It wasn't just any old paper boat though. It was the one he had made for his dead brother Georgie the day he disappeared into the sewer system of Derry.

Tony and the Captain just looked at Lucas with surprise of their own. Tony had playfully tried to retrieve the little paper boat by snatching it out of Lucas's hands.

The teenager reacted angrily and stepped back from the Moon Pool, "NO! It's mine," he said on the verge of tears. He ran from the Moon Pool to the solitude of his quarters as the tears threatened to spill down his face.

"I'll get you one of your very own, Lucas," Tony called out jokingly as he tried to fathom why his friend was being so touchy about a little paper boat.

Bridger tried to reassure Tony that Lucas had been upset before he had seen the boat. He said that Lucas had only grabbed out at the boat in frustration of whatever else was truly bothering him.

He told Piccolo that Lucas just needed some space for a little while and every thing would be fine again.

* * *

Back in his quarters, Lucas sat on his bed with the little paper boat still clasped strongly in his hands and up close against his chest. There was no other explanation for this item appearing out of the blue like that.

If you thought about it in terms of physics and chemistry, is was a near impossibility that the little boat had found itself in the depths of the ocean.

They had to be at least 100 feet down. Apart from the distance between where he was on the boat and where the township of Derry was, it was just a trick of the mind that a object made of paper could float in such deep water.

They all float down here _Billy Boy_ ...the words echoed in his mind. He tried to shut them out and turned over on his bunk and closed his eyes and hopefully his mind to the painful memories that were beginning to emerge.

Bridger had knocked lightly on Lucas's door and then entered when he didn't receive an answer from the upset teenager. He was surprised to see the boy had actually fallen asleep. He knew that something was troubling him deeply.

Lucas wasn't normally one to be sleeping during the day like this. The Captain noted the silvery tear tracks that ran down his face. He caressed the boy's pale cheek with the back of his hand and decided to let him sleep. Whatever was bothering him could wait to be discussed when he had gotten some rest.

Maybe rest was the best thing for him. He would talk to Kristin about giving the boy a complete physical tomorrow just to make sure he wasn't coming down with something.

* * *

Bridger quietly closed the door and informed those who needed to know, including Tony that the boy was asleep. He made it clear that the boy wasn't to be disturbed until he had woken up on his own.

Everybody agreed to the Captain's words.

Tony was still having thoughts about what he might have done to set the teenager off.

Later that afternoon, Lucas had awoken on his own and come out of his room. He was forcing himself to forget what he had seen and carry on as normally as possible. He went into the Mess Hall for something to eat. He moved the meal around on his plate but nothing actually got eaten.

For the rest of the evening he spent his time in his quarters trying to work as hard as he could at his computer terminal to keep his mind from wandering.

Tony had come back into the room about 11.00 p.m. but was afraid to say anything to the still quiet and withdrawn teenager. He went to sleep wondering what was bothering the teenager. Somehow he could wait until shore leave so he could get his friend to loosen up a little.

Lucas went back to his bunk at about 4.00 am. He didn't want to lie there and not be able to go to sleep. If he just laid there, he would think too much about the past.

He made himself so dog tired that he didn't dream at all. He was being shaken awake by his room mate at 7.00 am who was telling him to get up and dressed for his stint on the Bridge.

The youth rolled over and groaned but knew it was fruitless trying to go back to sleep. If he didn't show up on the Bridge on time, Commander Ford would come and find him and demand to know why he needed to sleep in. He didn't feel like telling anybody that he had only gone to bed a few hours ago after working all night.

If that sort of information leaked out, he would hear the wrath of Commander Ford, the Captain and probably Doctor Kristin Westphalen to go with it.

When he finally made it to the Bridge five minutes late, he didn't get the chewing out he was expecting. He quietly took his post at his usual console and started working as usual.

Bridger had a quiet word earlier that morning to Commander Ford about Lucas's sudden change in behaviour. He urged the young Commander to give the teenager a little slack here and there until he could work out what the problem was.

Commander Ford had noted Lucas's tardiness, but he swallowed his words of retribution as instructed and simply gave the teenager a simple nod to say that he accepted any unspoken apology for his lateness.

Bridger looked at the teenager and noted the tiredness in Lucas's eyes and the almost haunted look that now existed. Yesterday there had been a smile there, even laughter, but today all of that had been replaced by a firmly tight lips and a frown as the teenager worked with his head down.

The teenager didn't look up at any of his colleagues and so therefore failed to note the eyes of worry that watched him go about his duty.

Commander Ford had been more worried today about the SeaQuest itself than Lucas moody behaviour. The life support system seemed to be functioning okay, but there were a few areas like weapons and propulsion which were beginning to show glitches and slowness.

The boat had slowed down considerably since the day before and no matter what the engineering people tried, they just couldn't seem to get the boat going any faster.

Lieutenant Tim O'Neill suddenly took an incoming call through his headset. He listened to the caller at first and then asked the man on the other end to repeat who it was that he needed to speak to.

The speaker on the other end was Michael Hanlon. He didn't give his name to Tim. He asked the young Lieutenant if there was anybody aboard that matched the description of blond hair, blue eyes, slim build and about 17 years of age.

Tim looked over at the person who matched those criteria. He was a bit apprehensive about some complete stranger communicating with the teenager. He decided to voice his concerns to the Captain first.

"Captain," he began nervously, all the while stealing glances towards Lucas who still hadn't looked up from his work station.

"I have a caller here who won't identify himself, he says that he is wanting to talk to somebody who matches the description of blond hair, blue eyes and about 17 years old. He looked at Lucas again.

Bridger and the rest of the crew also looked towards the teenager who had apparently not heard the conversation. Lucas looked up when he felt that everybody was staring at him again for some reason.

Bridger nodded to Tim to repeat his message again for the confused teenager.

"Lucas I think this caller wants to talk to you. He won't give his name but he insists on talking to somebody with blond hair, blue eyes and about 17 years old." Tim explained.

"I'll take it in my quarters if you don't mind, Tim," Lucas said.

"A secure channel too please" he said as he walked off the Bridge towards his room.

* * *

The Captain was less than happy with this idea. He didn't like the idea of a complete stranger wanting to talk to Lucas anymore than Tim O'Neill did. Something in the back of his mind told him that maybe the call had some clues as to how Lucas had been behaving.

The request for a Secure Channel signaled to the Navy Seaman that perhaps Lucas knew who the caller was. He motioned for Tim to hold the call for just a few more minutes before patching it through to Lucas. He needed to voice his concerns to the rest of the crew before he did what he was about to do.

"I will talk to you all later about what I am about to do, but I need your co-operation on this," Bridger started to explain

"Something has been bothering Lucas as you have all noticed. I think that this call might be a clue to what's been going on. I want to record the call in case it becomes useful later on. I normally don't like eavesdropping on other people's conversations, but this time I am willing to make an exception. Are you with me?"

Almost all of them nodded their heads in agreement. All of them knew that Captain Bridger didn't usually use unfair tactics unless he was forced to. If he thought that something private like a telephone call was important to record, he must have a very good reason.

"After this call is recorded Commander Ford, I want a copy of it made and I want a meeting of all the Senior Staff in the Ward Room," Bridger ordered.

"Lieutenant, you may transfer to call to Lucas on a secure channel now" Bridger instructed.

Tim O'Neill did as he was instructed and patched the call through to Lucas. He could see the light on his console flashing to indicate that a call was being received. He would need to keep recording until the light went off. He never took his eyes of the red flashing light.

Back in his quarters, Lucas picked up the receiver in his room and listened for the caller at the other end. Somehow he knew in the back of his mind who the caller would be and why he was calling.

He listened to the words carefully of the caller on the other end of the line. He said a few words himself and then hung up. He went back to his bunk and sat down while he tried to concentrate on what he had just heard.

_IT's come back Bill... IT's come back again._

There was something he needed to ask the Captain before going to see Doctor Westphalen. His head was beginning to ache a little from all of the memories and the concentration.

Tim O'Neill had recorded the call as requested and made the necessary copy. He had just hidden away his deed when Lucas walked back onto the Bridge and approached the Captain in private.

"Can I talk to you alone for a minute, Captain?" Lucas asked. He had found it hard to push the words out after the telephone call. His voice was barely above a whisper.

"Sure, kiddo," Bridger said trying to act normal.

"What's on you mind?"

"Um Captain, can you come out here for a minute please," Lucas continued as he walked out off the Bridger and away from listening ears.

Bridger noted that the teenager seemed to be rubbing at his temple and asked if there was anything wrong.

"Nah, just a slight headache," Lucas answered. "I just about to go and ask Doctor Westphalen for some aspirin. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute first."

"What did you want to ask me?" Bridger enquired barely able to keep from spilling what he had done about the call.

"I wanted to ask if I could arrange for a few friends to come and stay on the SeaQuest for a couple of days." Lucas said. He didn't know what the Captain's reaction would be. He knew that the UEO would be far from impressed with the suggestion. But he needed to come up with a safe haven for his friends, even if it was only for two days.

Bridger was taken aback by the request. In all the three years that Lucas had been on the SeaQuest, he had never once asked to bring any visitors or guests on board. Not even to look around when they were docked for repairs. The request sounded far from a simple get together of a few teenagers.

"Um I don't know what to say, Lucas," Bridger began and he instantly saw the teenager's face fall when he thought the request was being denied. "But I also don't have any objections, ,if it is only for a couple of days."

Lucas had to look at Bridger to see if he had heard right. At first he thought the man was refusing just like he had expected, now that he seemed to be agreeing to his request, he could scarcely believe it.

"You really mean it," Lucas said with a hint of a smile on his face.

Bridger couldn't resist that smile. He hadn't seen it in two days and it always had the same effect of happiness on him.

"Yes I really mean it. But you have to tell me who you want and where to pick them up from. We are almost due home so it shouldn't be a problem. What are you planning to do when they get here?"

Bridger's curiosity was getting the better of him.

"Oh, nothing much, I was just looking forward to a reunion of a few old time friends," Lucas said.

"I go and make the arrangements for the shuttle to pick them up. Is tomorrow to soon?"

Bridger smiled again at the kid's excitement. "Tomorrow is just fine," he answered.

* * *

Lucas left Bridger to his thoughts and went to see Kristen about the aspirin for his headache. His excitement about his friends coming aboard had been a bit of an act. True he did want to see them all again, but normally they only met at the worst possible times.

When he got to the Med Bay he spoke to Kristen and she had gladly given him two aspirin for his headache. She wanted to know if there was anything else she could do for him. But he just shook his head and told her that everything was alright.

The lie tasted particularly bitter in his mouth when he said the words. He went back to his cabin and noted that he wouldn't be able to call his friends for another couple of hours due to the time differences. He laid back on his bunk and intended toget a little sleep before he called them all.

This sleep might be the last he would get for some time to come. He might even find that he would never wake up from the next sleep he took.

Tony had come into the room and was about to ask his room mate if he was coming to the Mess Hall for some chow. When he saw the teenager was asleep he decided to let him be.

Piccolo had met up with the Captain in the Mess Hall. Bridger had asked where Lucas was and Tony had told him that Lucas was asleep in his room. Bridger just nodded his head and thought that this might be the perfect opportunity to listen to their pirated copy of Lucas's telephone call.

He told Commander Ford to get the Senior Team together and he would join them in a moment.

"Something I should know about, Captain?" Tony asked.

Bridger looked at Tony with sympathy. It was true that Tony wasn't a senior member of the crew but he knew the ex-con had definite feelings towards his friend Lucas. He couldn't turn the man down and told him what they were going to be doing.

Tony had been a little shocked at Bridger's telling him about recording Lucas's private telephone conversation. But he agreed that the young man hadn't been himself lately and maybe the mystery call should shed some light on the subject.

Bridger and Tony walked to the Ward Room and saw Lieutenant Jim Brody, Commander Jonathan Ford, Lieutenant Lonnie Anderson, Communications Officer Tim O'Neill and Sensor Chief Miguel Ortiz sitting in the room.

They were all a little surprised to see Tony walk in with the Captain, but none of them spoke up about this being a meeting for Senior Crew members only. They too knew how Tony and Lucas had become friends over the last couple of months. They were always in each other's company.

Bridger locked the door to the Ward Room and then stood in front of the seated crew, waiting to start his explanation.

"I suppose you're all thinking that I am being way too protective over Lucas, especially with the telephone conversation and all," Bridger started, "But I want to assure you all that my intentions are genuine enough. Lucas had been wandering around this boat for a day now and I don't need to tell you all that something is definitely bothering him. Let's listen to this call and take it from there."

"The other strange thing that happened today involved Lucas asking if he could invite some of his friends aboard the SeaQuest for a visit" the Captain continued.

"It all sounds a little suspicious to me. I don't even know who these friends are. But it must be something important if Lucas is being bold enough for us all to meet them. He usually keeps things like that to himself. Do any of you know who these friends might be?"

The crew all shook their heads in a negative response. All of them tried to think, but not one of them could ever remember Lucas mentioning that he even had friends outside of the SeaQuest crew.

Bridger went about setting up the tape containing the recorded telephone conversation.

"What is about to be heard in this tape, doesn't leave this room, understood?" Bridger warned sternly. He could only imagine what Lucas's reaction would be to his tampering with his private calls.

The crew all motioned their agreement and Bridger pressed the play button and sat back ready to hear Lucas's voice:

**_(AUTHOR'S NOTE - TELEPHONE CONVERSATION HAD BETWEEN LUCAS AND MYSTERY CALLER)_**

"Is that you, Bill?" came the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah Mike, it's me," Lucas answered.

"I guess I don't need to tell you why I am calling," the stranger said.

"No, Mike I know why you are calling," Lucas said with a little fear sounding in his voice.

"I wish it could be different," the stranger said.

"I have to keep doing this Mike, for Georgie's sake," Lucas replied.

_"IT'S COME BACK BILL!_" the stranger said with a little of fear in his voice as well.

"Will you come, Bill?" the stranger asked Lucas.

"Yeah I'll come, but first let me contact the others. I will get us all to meet in one place and talk this thing through. We can't let it get to us on our own like it did last time Mike," Lucas said.

"I can't do it like that again. This time it has to be different. This time there has to be some planning involved on our part."

"What are you planning to do?" Mike Hanlon asked.

"I'm not sure yet, give me time to contact the others. Maybe we could all meet here and go from there," Lucas suggested.

"I'll try and make up some reason to get you all on board."

"I'll wait to hear from you then, Bill," Mike said. "I'm sorry Bill. Remember your promise Bill... Remember your promise."

"Yeah I remember my promise," Lucas said a little too harshly. As if he needed to be reminded. It was him that made them all promise the first time around.

* * *

The tape ended with the click of the phone on the other end. They all just sat there for a few minutes, trying to take in what they had heard.

At first, they were all wondering why the man on the other end was calling Lucas Bill. They thought he must have made a mistake, but then again, Lucas seemed to answer to the alternate identity okay.

Who was Bill?

Who was the man on the other end of the phone?

What was IT and why was it back?

What did Lucas promise to do?

Where did he intend to go and why?

Bridger was determined that Lucas wasn't about to go anywhere. The strange phone call scared him enough and planted enough seeds of doubt in his mind to prompt him to keep an even closer eye on the teenager. But he wasn't going to be able to do it alone without the teenager getting suspicious or angry.

"What do you make of all of that, Captain?" Tony said out aloud. He was voicing the questions in all of their heads.

"I don't know Tony, but I don't like it," Bridger admitted.

"Why was that man calling Lucas Bill the whole time?" Lonnie Anderson asked in a quiet voice.

"I don't know the answer to that either, Lonnie," the Captain answered.

"I think we need to monitor this situation a little more, Captain," Jonathan Ford said in a very military sounding solution.

"I think your right, Commander," Bridger said hating to go behind the teenager's back. But in this case he definitely thought it was warranted and justified.

"What do you suggest Jonathan?"

"I think we need to place a hidden camera in Lucas's quarters and maybe listening device on him somewhere," Ford suggested.

"Especially during this visit by his friends. It sounds like he is determined to go somewhere soon. Maybe Lucas is placing himself in danger and doesn't even know it."

"You mean you want to bug him all the time," Tony said with a whistle. "You're definitely braver than me, Sir."

"I don't think we have a choice in this as the Commander says, Tony," Bridger now added.

"Something about this doesn't smell right at all. I don't want Lucas leaving this boat for any reason at the moment until we can establish who these friends of his are and what they want and where he intends to go with them."

"Can you organize these devices, Commander?" the Captain asked his next in charge.

"Yes Captain, the bug in his room shouldn't be a problem, but the bug on him is another story all together. I think that is where you will need to come in a little more," Ford said.

"How so?" Bridger asked.

"There are a number of bugs we could use on his person, but probably the best one and least obvious in his case would be one in the form of a wristwatch. The watch works normally and everything, but it has a small micro bug inside of it that we could listen to and monitor. It would allow us to hear his conversation and track his movements both on the both and off of it should he try and attempt to leave the SeaQuest," the Commander explained.

"Okay, you get it to me and I'll give it to him," Bridger said.

"Kind of a belated birthday present or an early Christmas one. Lieutenant O'Neill once this bug is in place in his room, I want you to monitor it and tell us of any outgoing or incoming calls that we might not know about. "

"Brody, your going to be the listener for the other bug on Lucas," Bridger explained.

"I want to be able to hear what he is saying at all times on the Bridge and keep me informed of where he is."

"I don't think I need to remind you people about keeping this as secret from Lucas as possible. He might find out by accident, but we will just have to jump that bridge when we come to it. For now just keep out eyes and ears open," Captain Bridger stated.

They all left with their new assignments and tasks in hand. They were somewhat apprehensive about how the next few days might pan out. But they were willing to help out Lucas anyway they could.

Lucas was still asleep for a few more hours so O'Neill was able to slip into his quarters and place the button like bug in an inconspicuous hiding place. Chances being Lucas would not even know it was there and if he did stumble across it by accident then it only looked liked a small black dot on the floor behind the bed.

O'Neill took a look at the slumbering teenager as he walked passed. The boy's blond hair had fallen over his closed eyes. He could see the teenager clutching at the bed clothes. It looked as though he was holding on for dear life. Maybe Lucas was just having a bad dream he told himself as he closed the door silently behind him.

Later that day, Lucas had awoken from his sleep and was still in his room. He was about to make four important phone calls. He secured the open line first and dialed his first number.

"Captain," O'Neill announced, "Lucas is making an outgoing call from his room on a secured line."

"Let's listen to it Lieutenant, but quietly shall we," Bridger said trying to emphasis the quiet part. Something in the back of his mind still told him that this was wrong no matter what the reason was.

**_(AUTHOR'S NOTE - LUCAS'S FIRST TELEPHONE CALL)_**

"Who do I call first?" he asked himself. There were three calls to make, but somehow there still existed the need to make them in the correct order.

Lucas spoke out loud to himself as he dialed the required number. His hands were a little shaky. It had been Mike who had made all of the calls last time. Somehow he wished it was Mike doing it this time. But he knew he couldn't shirk his responsibilities. He had to warn them all. He secretly wondered if any of them had had the warning signs that he had received from Pennywise.

"555 2589," Lucas said. The crew could hear the telephone in the background ringing. It rang approximately five times before someone on the other end picked it up.

"Hello?" said a female voice on the other end. It was Beverley Marsh's voice. That wasn't her name she used at the moment. Lucas had kept a little track of them and where they were living now, just in case he ever needed them again.

"Hi Bevvie," Lucas said in a smooth sounding voice.

"Who is this?" the young woman asked. There was a pause on the line as Lucas cleared his throat a little. He really didn't know how to start this conversation.

"It's me Bev, it's Bill," Lucas answered.

Bridger and the other's were now more confused than ever. Now Lucas was even saying his name was Bill. What was going on here?

"BILL!" Beverley said in utter surprise. "Is it really you?" The voice sounded pleased at Lucas being on the other end.

Lucas didn't know any other way than to say this direct.

"_IT'S COME BACK BEVVIE_," Lucas said.

Now there was a pause on Beverley's end of the line. Her hands had begun to tremble a little at these words. Somehow she knew that Bill Denborough wouldn't be making a social call.

"Remember you're promise, Bevvie," Lucas now said a little sterner.

"Yes, I remember, Bill," she said. "What do you want me to do? Do the others know yet?"

"I'm going to organize to pick you up tomorrow at the pier, Beverley," Lucas said now saying her full name for the first time. In the back of his mind, his brain was remembering what she looked like back in 1959 with her long hair braided into two plaits.

"I'll bring you here where I am until we can all discuss what to do. Have you seen or heard anything yet, Bevvie?" Lucas asked.

"Ummm, no not really," Beverley answered. But the tone in her voice told otherwise. She was not willing to go into detail about the incident outside near the news stand this morning.

"Sorry, Bevvie, got two more calls to make," Lucas said cutting the conversation a bit short

"We will talk more tomorrow I promise. I love you Beverley Marsh, " he said at the end and hung up.

When he had finished the call he was reminiscing about old times and far off places again. A time when their innocence about the real world hadn't been completely torn in two yet.

* * *

While Lucas was dreaming of Beverley Marsh. The crew on the Bridger just looked more confused by the minute about what was going on. They had all smiled a little at Lucas's private admittance of having loved a girl.

This was almost a first too. Lucas had never admitted to liking any girl, apart from Juliana. Sure he wasn't totally shy of them, Tony had seen to this on a number of occasions. But Lucas actually coming out and telling a girl that he loved her... she had to be something special indeed.

"He's making another call, Sir," O'Neill informed the Captain. Bridger gave his nod of thanks for the information and stood by as they waited for the second call to connect.

**_(AUTHOR'S NOTE - LUCAS'S SECOND TELEPHONE CALL)_**

"555 8954 _Beep Beep Richie_," Lucas said with a little laughter in his voice. His mind was taking him back again to happier times with the _**LOSER's CLUB**_.

There was an awful lot of noise at the end of this line when the phone was first picked up _"HELLO"_ Lucas said as he found himself shouting into the receiver.

"If your blond and beautiful, then I want to talk to you, all you other turkey's out there buzz off," Richie Tozier said in his best suave voice.

Lucas smirked a little at his friends endless sense of humour. It had always kept the rest of them going in times of fear of the unknown.

"Well you got the blond part right, Trashmouth, but the other part I'm not so sure about," Lucas said into the other end of the phone.

"BIG BILL DENBROUGH!" Richie said in absolute astonishment.

"Where are you? You'd better not tell me your in town without letting me know you're coming first. We've got so many bars to visit man and so little time to do them in."

"You were always the first rate clown, Tozier," Lucas said and then realised in horror at the word _CLOWN_ that had escaped his lips. He wished he could take it back.

"Sorry, Richie," Lucas stammered, "I wasn't thinking. I am not in town pal, this isn't a social call."

But somehow just like Bev, Richie had known that almost before he had answered the ringing telephone.

"Bill, what's going on?" Richie asked in a serious tone. He was asking about

his rude awakening this morning that he didn't describe in any detail.

"_IT's_ come back, Richie!" Lucas now repeated to his second friend.

"You mean _AGAIN_!" Richie said in alarm.

"I told you guys this would happen. I told you we should have taken M-16's down there, but _NOOOOOO_ all we did was put him back to sleep for another thirty years or so."

"I don't know if I can do this again, Bill," Richie said genuinely.

Lucas could hear the hesitation in the comedian's voice. "Could you do it for Eddie, Richie?" he asked.

The mention of Eddie's name only brought tears and pain to Richie Tozier. Pain that he wanted to bury deep down inside a long time ago and forget about just like Derry itself.

Lucas could hear Richie's groan on the phone and knew he was dragging up old hurt again for his friend. "Remember you promise, Richie," Lucas said.

"Yeah I remember, Big Bill," Richie said in a solemn voice.

"What do you want me to do this time?" Richie knew he didn't really have a choice in this. For Eddie or not.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow at the pier and let you know from there. I have already phoned Bev, she's going to met us there too. I already talked to Mike earlier. There's only Haystack left to call," Lucas said.

"See you tomorrow, Trashmouth" and again Lucas cut the conversation short.

His mind went back to when Richie Tozier still wore glasses. He wondered if Richie wore them now, even with all the sticky tape to hold them together.

* * *

Bridger and the other's were getting more confused and more confused. They had just heard the voice on the other end, the Lucas had identified as Richie and Trashmouth to call Lucas, Bill Denbrough.

Somewhere in the back of Bridger's mind, he remembered that name Bill Denbrough, but he couldn't quite place it right now.

"There's a third call going out, Sir,"O'Neill informed Bridger.

**_(AUTHOR'S NOTE - LUCAS'S THIRD TELEPHONE CALL)_**

"555 1463 HAYSTACK," Lucas announced as he next intended call.

"Hello, you have reached the Hansom's residence, I not in right now, but if you care to leave your name and number, I get back to you" the answering machine said.

Lucas was about to hang up disappointed that he didn't reach his last number when he heard the receiver being picked up at the other end.

"Hello?" came a very sleeping sounding voice on the other end. Lucas had tried to reach them all at a decent hour, but now he realised that he had rung his friend at 3.00 am in the morning his time.

"Sorry to wake you up, Haystack," Lucas said apologetically to the other person.

"Well I'll be," the voice said in utter surprise, "Bill Denbrough, I never expected to hear from you tonight. I never expected to hear from you again period."

"Yeah I know friend, but there's something stirring up again," Lucas explained.

"You mean it's started all over again," Ben said nervously.

"I'm afraid so, Ben," Lucas answered. "Do you remember your promise Ben?"

"Yeah, I remember, but how are we going to fight him this time Bill? I don't know how much fight I have left in me after the last time," Ben answered honestly.

"You'll do just fine Haystack. We have got to," Lucas replied.

"Meet me at the dock tomorrow and I'll explain what we are going to do this time. I am going to get us all together on the SeaQuest for the time being so that he can't pick us off one by one this time around."

"Are we ever going to be safe from him, Bill?" Ben asked. "Cause right now I don't feel very safe at all. It's scaring me silly Bill."

"Me too friend, me too," Lucas said in a low voice. "See you tomorrow Haystack."

* * *

Bridger turned off the bug just in case Lucas decided to waltz in at any moment. He sighed in relief that he had when Lucas came wandering aimlessly onto the Bridge about twenty minutes later.

He didn't notice the pretend looks of concentration that the crew tried to give as they seemingly carried on their work

"Hi there," Bridger greeted the teenager, sounding as normal as he could under the circumstances.

"Hi," Lucas answered back. "I just spoke to my friends about coming aboard," he said.

"Oh!" Bridger said trying to hid his eavesdropping scheme. "Have they agreed to come?"

"Yeah, I told them all that we would pick them up tomorrow at about 3.00 pm if that was alright with you?"

"Yes, it's alright with me, but don't you want to pick them up yourself," Bridger now curious about Lucas's reluctance towards this chore.

"I was going to, but I really need to organize the sleeping arrangements and get the party I have planned organized for tomorrow night," Lucas said.

"Your having a party tomorrow night?" Bridger said with a hint of raised eyebrow at this comment.

"Nothing major, just a few bowls of food and some music," Lucas explained sheepishly.

"I'm sure that somebody wouldn't mind picking up your friends for you. You told them all to meet you somewhere did you?" Bridger asked.

"Yeah, I told them all to meet on the pier tomorrow. There will be three guys and a girl. You can't miss them. The girl has got long hair. One guy is fat and the other guy wears glasses, and then there is Mike, who is black," Lucas stated, describing his friends in a most unflattering but simple way.

"Seaman Piccolo, fancy taking a shuttle Upworld tomorrow?"Bridger now asked Tony.

"Aye, Sir," Tony answered. "So tell me Luke, whose the girl? Anybody special we should know about? he said jokingly as he jabbed the teenager playfully in the ribs.

Lucas turned slightly pink, "No, not really Tony, just an old friend," he said trying to explain Bev away casually. Inside, the mere mention of her name sent butterflies to his stomach.

* * *

Lucas spent a very restless night again trying to sleep. He tossed and he turned. Memories from long ago kept coming back to haunt him. He kept seeing old faces and remembering old time, both good and bad.

By 9.00 am that morning he made sure that he was up and about making ready for his friend's visit later that day.

Tony was about to leave in the shuttle to pick them up at the pier. Lucas had given Tony the descriptions of his four friends. Three guys, one girl. He made sure Tony knew their fake names just in case he needed to ask about them.

Lucas was just plain nervous. Lord knows why, he had known all of these people most of his life, but somehow he felt like meeting them all again for the first time.

Tony could see the anxiousness about the teenager and his nervousness about everything being just right. He assured Lucas that he would be back in a few hours with his friends.

Lucas busied himself in the ship's mess. Taking care of the evening party preparations himself. Nobody aboard knew that Lucas even knew how to cook. He had learned a great deal about fine cuisine when he was married to Audra. She had often shown him how to make oriental dishes and other meals that had their own ethnic flavours to them.

He had a partiality to Thai food actually. But tonight, not knowing what his friends might like, he erred on the side of caution and made a huge bowl of spaghetti with lots of freshly baked garlic bread. He made baby boiled potatoes in a mayonnaise dressing for a salad and a number of green vegetable dishes.

For main courses he made fried chicken with home made french fries. Dessert was just ice cream that had some chocolate drizzled over the top for a garnish.

While Lucas was busy in the ship's gallery kitchen, Bridger had been talking privately to Lieutenant O'Neill about what he had planned for Lucas's little get together.

Lucas intended to use one of the conference rooms to entertain his guests, so Bridger instructed Tim to set up a hidden camera inside the room. The camera was cleverly concealed to hide its presence. Lucas and his friends would be able to enjoy their little party and not even know that they were the star attraction in the Ward Room.

Bridger wanted to check up on his young charge and found him busily preparing his feast in the kitchen. As he walked into the room, the aromas that struck his senses were overwhelming. Everything smelled so good. It was hard to believe that Lucas could cook like this.

"You never told me you knew how to cook," Bridger said with a smile as he watched the teenager flit from one plate to the other making sure everything was just right.

"You never asked," Lucas said not looking up from his task.

"I have asked you to cook breakfast back at the island on a couple of occasions as I recall," Bridger said in reply.

"None of them ever looked or smelt this good before. Saving your best for your friends are you?"

"I don't often get to entertain like this." Lucas said trying to explain his culinary expertise.

"My friends are a bit picky about what they eat sometimes."

"_Shuttle Number 7 docking at Dock number 3_," came the announcement over the ship's communication system. Bridger would have to wait to continue this conversation at a later time.

Lucas looked up nervously and cleaned his hands on a tea towel. It was time to greet his friends. He looked a little apprehensive.

"Yeah," Lucas lied. "I just haven't seen them in a long time that's all," he admitted.

"And oh Captain, these friends of mine... ," the boy paused. Bridger looked questioningly at him.

"They don't call me Lucas very much that's all," Lucas said trying to explain away his real name that his friends would undoubtedly use.

"Oh," Bridger said trying to sound surprised. Maybe he would finally get an explanation to the BILL question that had been plaguing him for a couple of days now.

"What do they call you?"

"It's just a nick name, but Bill mostly," Lucas said and tried to give his best sheepish look. "Just wanted to let you know."

"Thank's I'll try to remember that it's you they are talking about when they call BILL down the corridor," Bridger said with a grin.

* * *

Lucas quickly made it towards Docking Bay 3 and his friends. Most of the crew were waiting to see the teenager's friends. Bridger had walked up to most of the senior crew and whispered to them about Lucas admitting his nick name was_ BILL_.

They all seemed happy with the explanation that the name was actually a nick name. It still sounded strange though to hear people calling him _BILL_ when they had known him as Lucas all of this time.

The mechanical sea doors slowly opened and water dripped from it as it rose into it's fully open position.

Richie Tozier was the first to climb up the ladder from the shuttle and stick his red head up into view. He looked about the room and his freckled face soon fell upon the one person he was looking for. Bill Denbrough

"Hi Ya, Big Bill," he greeted Lucas. Lucas stepped forward and grabbed his life long friend into a strong bear hug. He didn't care what the people behind him thought of this display of affection. He and these friends had been through too much together not to get emotional when they saw each other.

"Richie," Lucas greeted his friend, "You finally got here. Thought you must have got lost or something."

"Well, the cab driver here was a little easy on the gas peddle if you ask me," Richie said as he pointed towards Tony Piccolo. "I think he was taking the scenic route or something."

Lucas looked over at Tony but saw that his roommate was unaffected by Richie's remark. He barely paid any attention to anybody else on the boat. He only looked towards his friends.

Ben Hanscom was the next to emerge from shuttle. He was wearing jeans and a checked shirt. He hadn't changed much over the years. He had lost some weight, but was still a little on the chubby side.

"Good to see you again, Haystack," Lucas said as he gave the same warm show of affection to his larger friend.

"Wow, this is better than back home, Bill," Ben said as he looked in awe at the size and spectacular sight of the SeaQuest in all her glory.

"I'll give you a tour later if you like," Lucas offered his friend. His gaze was distracted from Ben as he caught sight of the next member of the '_Losers Club'_ to emerge from shuttle number 7. It was Beverley Marsh.

She looked even more prettier than he could have remembered. She still had her long auburn coloured hair in two neat braids. Her figure was still very slim and shapely.

Beverley looked at her friend and smiled at him. She showed just as much love towards him as Lucas had done. There were no words spoken between them at first. Lucas walked over to her and they both kissed passionately before everybody an engulfed each other in a lover's embrace.

Bridger raised his eyebrows at this site. Tony just chuckled to himself that he had been correct in his assumptions of there being more to this girl than Lucas was willing to admit.

They both parted and smiled back at each other, "You alright, Bev?" Lucas asked her as he gently stroked her cheek to rub away the few tears that she had let fall.

"I am now I with you, Bill," she whispered. She never felt more safer than with all of her friends right now. Somehow just being with Bill made her feel extra secure.

"Gee I hope I get a warm welcome like that," came Mike Hanlon's voice behind Bev as he climbed the ladder out of the shuttle.

"Mike!" Lucas said and grabbed his dark skinned friend's hand and shook it heartily.

"Great to see you, Mike."

"Good to see you too, Bill," Mike said with a grin.

"Well, Big Bill, where's the bar and the babes man," Richie Tozier said. "And there had better be babes aboard this crate. How could you stand it down here for months at a time without babes?"

Richie Tozier looked over at the SeaQuest crew that were giving him certain looks of disapproval. Some of them had already taken a dislike to his uncouth manner, but those who knew him also knew that he was all bluff. That's just how Richie was.You either loved him or hated him.

Richie spotted Lonnie Anderson standing near the doorway and looked at her small petite frame. "Not bad Billy Boy, not bad at all."

"Come on, let's go to my room and get settled," Lucas suggested as he tried to steer his friend out of trouble.

Bridger had moved Tony Piccolo out of his usual quarters with Lucas and placed three extra single mattresses in the room. He had been unsure about there being a young lady staying on the boat, but Lonnie offered to share her accommodation if the young girl opted not to stay in Lucas's quarters.

"I like the shaggy look, Bill," Richie said commenting on Lucas's blond hair. It was a little longer than normal, but Lucas liked it that way.

"Your butt and my face, Tozier," Lucas said aloud.

Bridger had been a little shocked at the teenager's remark but none of the friends seemed to notice the slightly rude comment.

Lucas felt more comfortable than he had in days. His friends had only been here a few minutes and already he was feeling completely at home with them again.

The crew just grinned and shook their heads at the sudden change in the teenager's demeanor. They could see that just being with these friends had a positive effect on him. They watched him and the others disappear down the corridor toward Lucas's quarters.

* * *

Bridger signaled to the senior crew that it was time to go and listen in the Ward Room again. The people involved made their way there ready to listen to the teenager's reunion.

The other members of the SeaQuest crew made their way back to their own duties and tasks.

"So this is where you live now huh, Big Bill," Richie said as he entered Lucas's humble room.

"Makes a difference to living in that concrete mansion of ours I suppose."

"Yeah, it's not exactly the Taj Mahal, but it's home for the time being," Lucas admitted.

" I still own the house in Sullivan Crescent. I couldn't bear to part with it for some reason. Some real estate guy contacted me just after Audra died and offered me two million for it. I just couldn't let go. Something to do with Audra I guess," Lucas saidwith a touch of sadness in his voice.

With these few true friends about him, there was no need to explain further.

"You still miss her don't you?" Bev asked Bill with sympathy. Maybe if things had have turned out differently, she could have been Mrs Bill Denbrough. She was not bitter about the fact that their lives had ended up down different paths.

Bill's family had moved away from Derry in the Summer of 1964. She had moved away too, but not until she was out on her own and away from her controlling father.

"Yeah, she's been gone a long time now, but I can still feel her presence sometimes," Bill admitted.

"So tell, me what you all have been doing with your lives since the last time we met?" Lucas asked trying to change the topic of conversation. His heart still weighed heavy for Audra.

At some point he had blamed himself entirely for what had happened to her. The guilt was still there years later, maybe it always would be.

"Well, speaking for myself," Richie Tozier said, "I can't thank you enough Bill for that Time Travel stuff. Thanks to you I have a whole new generation of fans just waiting to hear my acts and hear my jokes."

"Oh please Trashmouth, if it wasn't enough to hear it all the first time," Haystack chimed in.

"You know that Time Travel accident wasn't totally Bill's fault."

"I still can't explain what happened there guys," Bill said honestly. "After the last incident in 1985, things seemed to go alright for a while. Audra and I even planned to start having a family together. Something just didn't click though and Audra was told she would never be able to carry children."

"They couldn't give us any explanation. Everything was alright as far as I am concerned, no problems with me at all. The problem seemed to lay with Audra but they couldn't explain it medically. I always secretly blamed it on what happened to her in the dead lights."

"Oh why did you have to say that, Bill," Richie said in over dramatic tones. "As if we weren't all scared enough already. Why did you have to mention dead lights?"

Bill ignored his friend's jibing and continued with his explanation as to what went wrong.

"Anyway as I was saying, Audra died in 1990 as you all know," Lucas said softly, he blinked back the tears.

"After her death, I just couldn't seem to function properly without her. It was as if something inside me died with her that day. I started on a one way trip to self-destruction. I drank, I smokes two packs a day, I even experimented a little with hard drugs. Nothing seemed to help. Then one day I woke up after a night of heaving drinking and thought to myself, what if it comes back again."

Bill looked up to look at the faces of his friends at this question. He saw the fear they all held. They had all thought the same thing secretly but would never admit to it.

"That's when I started working on that Time Travel project. I tried to make it so that we would be young enough the next time it come back again and we had to fight. Otherwise we would all be seventy three or so by now." Lucas continued.

Back in the Ward Room, Bridger and the others couldn't believe what they were hearing.

"I had been working on the project for months when it finally seemed to work properly. That's when I contacted you all and told you about what I was going to do. I intended for us all to go back in time, not forwards. I wanted us to be able to go back and live normal kid's lives, not feeling scared like we had done the first time," Bill explained.

"That's were things went wrong for all of us didn't they, Bill?" Mike now asked.

"Yeah, we all got young again alright, but somehow instead of going back to 1959, we went forward to the twenty-first century. I ended up being eleven all over again. I thought I had gotten the chance to live the childhood that I had always been denied before after Derry," Lucas continued.

"When I got to this new time slot, I found myself living with the Wolenczak's and that's were I took my current name from, Lucas Wolenczak," Bill added.

"You mean that's a real surname?" Richie asked jokingly. "When you told me what you name was now Bill, I thought you made it up like one of the characters from your books."

"No, it's a real name alright, Richie," Bill replied "Lawrence and Cynthia Wolenczak, all American good guys and loving parents everybody thought. Until the abuse started," Lucas said sadly.

Bill's friends were shocked. None of them knew about the abuse that Bill had suffered at the hands of the Wolenczak's while he was Lucas. The teenager went into some of the details about how he had been treated whilst living with them. He told them about the bruises and the broken limbs.

By the time he had finished, his voice was almost a whisper. All of his friends were openly saddened at the horrors Bill had suffered. To them, Bill had always been the strong one. He was their leader. He was the one they had all looked up to in times of trouble. Some how it seemed a cruel twist of fate that he should be dealt a hand like that after being their protector for so long.

"And you want to know the sad part about it all," Lucas asked his friends.

"The ironic part is that for a long time, I actually believed that I deserved that punishment. Not because of anything that I had done to the Wolenczak's. But because of what had happened to Georgie. I figured that it was payback for all of the misery I caused my little brother."

Lucas was barely keeping it together by the time he finished his traumatic tale. Richie and Bev put their arms around him and hugged him.

"You listen to me, Bill Denbrough," Bev said in a stern but gentle voice. "Nothing about what happened to your little brother Georgie was your fault."

"But...," Lucas tried to say, but Bev put her finger to his lips to silence him.

"There wasn't anything you could have done to save him, Bill," Bev told him. The others nodded their heads in agreement trying to reassure their friend.

Lucas looked about at his friends but still found it difficult to believe the words they were saying to him.

"Have you been still working on the Time Travel project since then, Bill," Haystack asked nervously.

"Yeah, I have Ben, even the crew here knows I am working on it for the past three years now. Though I have told them that I have never successfully got it to work yet," Bill said.

"I have gotten close again on a number of occasions. I have so much more equipment to work with here in the year 2019 that I didn't have in 1990."

"Have you told any of the people on this boat what's been going on, Bill?" Richie asked.

"No Rich, I haven't mentioned anything," Lucas admitted. "Something happened the other day on the Bridger and at the Moon Pool, but I just explained it away as best I could.

"Whoa what I saw the night before you rang, Bill," Richie said as he finally let out his terrible secret.

Richie looked about the room and saw that he wasn't the only one who had seen something that day.

"Okay, let's here it from you all," Bill announced. "He's trying to chip away at us already. Trying to find the weakest link again."

"And maybe he will succeed this time, Bill," Richie said in fear. "Have you all thought about that. This time there's only five of us left. Who is going to be net? Eddie and Stan have already paid the ultimate price. Which one of us is going to die this time? One of us, more, or all of us?"

"That's why I had you all brought on board here, Richie," Bill said. "It was the only way I could think of to get us all together to protect each other. We need to be able to join our hands again and fight the evil off if it comes. I don't know how strong five of us will be compared to seven, but I don't think we have much of a choice."

"That's why I tried to go back in time. Somehow after what happened in 1985 I knew that we would always be the chosen ones. No matter when it came back, it was our responsibility to see that it was driven back again for the next thirty years or so. We will all discuss later on after dinner what we are going to do this time around" Lucas suggested.

* * *

"For now, just let us catch up a little first and find out what has been happening to each other over the past few years."

"Who's first, you, Bev?" Lucas prompted. It was supposed to be a girls go first thing, but it came out sounding lame.

"Alright, I'll start," Bev suggested. "As you know, I had been living with that asshole Tom Rogan when we met in 1985. He used to hit me around just like my father did back when I was a kid. Trust me Bill, I know exactly know what you went through when you were beaten. It might sound different to you, but it's all the same to me."

"Anyway, when I got back to Chicago and my business. I threw myself back into my work. It thrived just as successfully without that pompous twit standing over my shoulder the whole time. I had been the back bone of that company. I had started it from sewing a few simple clothes for myself and made it into a multinational operation."

"After the Time Travel thing, I found myself back in Derry again. Back with my father. I was eleven, almost twelve I think. I lived with my father until I was old enough to get out on my own. From then up until now, I have been living in a one bedroom apartment with my friend fluffy the cat and a canary for company."

"I went out with a boy for a few months, but then one night he turned around and hit me, breaking my nose. Surprise surprise Huh?" Bev said disgusted with her romantic score card.

"The other day, before you rang Bill, I had walked down to a nearby newsstand to buy a paper. I started going back to my apartment when I looked down at my hands. They were covered in blood. The paper was actually bleeding. I looked around in fright."

"obody else seemed to be able to see the blood. Just like the last time in my dad's place. I could see it they couldn't. Anyway, I ran all the way back. I threw the paper in a trash bin but my hands were still stained red. I got home and went into the bathroom and started to wash away the blood. It took almost half and hour for the red stain to go away."

"Just as I was cleaning the basin, I heard voices in the drain hole again. It wasn't any of the dead kids this time. It was Pennywise laughing. Telling me that we will meet up again real soon," Bev finished. Her hands were shaking and she was trembling from the fear that radiated through her body.

Bill moved a little closer to were she sat on his bed and pulled her closer to him in a hug.

"It all felt so real... it really did," Bev said amidst her tears.

"It's alright, Bev, I promise I am not going to let him get to you again," Bill said softly.

Bill looked up at Richie, "What about you Tozier?" he asked. "What happened to you."

"I don' know if I really want to repeat it," Richie said nervously.

"We are all your friends here Rich, we will believe you," Lucas said reassuringly.

"It's not that I think you won't believe it, Big Bill," Richie said. "I just don't know if I believe it myself. Oh well, here goes," he said with a sigh.

"I was watching a Johnny Carson late show. You know, the one where he invites celebrities onto the show and talks to them about their shows. Well the other night, I was watching Whoopie Goldberg, she was a barrel of laughs. Suddenly the TV went dark and I thought they must be going to an ad break."

"The next thing I see is that the next guest speaker isn't Tom Selleck like they said it was. The next guy I see walk out is Michael Landon, but he wasn't dressed like he normally was, he was dressed like his character out of that movie _"I Was a Teenage Werewolf_"."

"Johnny Carson didn't seem to notice that he was the werewolf. He just kept asking questions. Then suddenly Michael Landon comes right up to the TV screen, I almost pissed myself and thought he was gonna reach right through the screen and grab me."

"He leans right up close to the screen and in the best voice of Henry Bowers you have ever heard he says : _Gonna get you fuckface, gonna break those glasses_," Richie said. By the time he was finished, he was rubbing insanely at the sweaty palms of his hands.

"Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time," Haystack said. _Henry Bowers_.

"That's what happened to me the other night, Richie," Ben admitted.

"I was walking through a park walking my dog, when I turned around and thought I could see Henry, Belch and Victor Criss chasing me. They were running after me just like that day down at the Barrens when I stumbled on you and Eddie Bill, down by the stream."

"I kept running and running until I couldn't run anymore. I could still hear their voices and it sounded like they were getting louder and closer all of the time. _ 'Gonna get you fat boy _they yelled_. 'Gonna carve my whole fucking name in your gutsthis time'_ Henry yelled.

"Just as quickly as I thought they were following me, they were gone. I could hear them laughing still. I haven't been that scared in a long time," Ben said. He was shaking slightly too at the end of his tale. He looked up at his friends but only saw sympathy and understanding coming from them.

"What happened to you, Mike?" Bev asked.

Mike started out as nervously as the rest of them. "I was in my apartment when I looked outside at the tree near the window. I could see a couple of sparrows in a new nest so I decided to take a look inside it. I went outside and climbed the tree, when I looked inside the nest, I couldn't believe what I saw."

"There were three eggs in the nest but one had been cracked open. What I saw was this deformed looking pathetic creature that looked like it never should have breathed life. It was completely bald of any downy or feathers. It's eyes seemed to be double the right size and they seemed to bulge out of it's head. I saw it looking there and was going to pick it up and put it in a trash bin when it talked to me," Mike said.

"It talked to you, Mike?" Bill asked.

_"Gonna get you nigga. Me and my daddy are get all you niggas. Better stay away from Derry if you know what's good for you nigga,_" Mike said as he repeated the ominous words he had heard in the form of Henry Bowers coming from the disfigured bird in the nest.

"Seems that Henry Bowers is still determined to haunt us for the rest of our lives," Ben said in disgust. That name and face had plagued his mind since he had first moved to Derry, now almost 73 years later, it still put fear into him to hear that voice.

The others nodded their heads in agreement. It seemed that Henry Bowers had a grudge to bear against all of them at some stage.

* * *

"How bout you, Bill" Richie said, breaking the silence. "You still haven't told us much about yourself except for your adopted folks. Have you done any writing lately?"

**_(Author's Note -Back in the Ward Room)_**

Tim O'Neill began furiously looking at the Social Security records to cure their curiosity about this person Bill Denbrough. He had been a book worm most his life and knew that the name rang a bell in his mind, just like it had in the Captain's.

He logged onto the correct database and put in the name William Denbrough. It took a few minutes to come up. Tim motioned for them to gather around the laptop computer screen in front of him to see what he had found.

The writing on the page said:

_**WILLIAM DENBROUGH**_

_**Date of Birth - 1947 Portland Maine**_

_**Father: Zack Denbrough**_

_**Mother: Sharon Denbrough**_

_**Occupation - Writer/Author**_

_**Wife- Audra Denbrough - married - 1976 New England**_

_**Latest Book - THE BLACK RAPIDS**_

There were a few other facts listed on the page about William Denbrough's schooling and other novels he had written. To the write of the typed text was a photo.

It had been taken about 1984. It was an older picture of Lucas, a lot older, but you could still tell it was him. He was wearing a pair of thinly rimmed glasses and had long hair pulled back into a pony tail at the back. But the more the crew looked at the photo, the more their eyes kept telling them that Lucas was actually the same man.

They didn't know how. The time travel idea didn't seem to be rational enough an explanation. But there it was in black in white with a picture to prove it.

Bridger had even remembered reading a couple of Bill Denbrough's novel's back in his college days. He never thought much about them because they were always of a horror nature and had dark underlying ideas behind the words.

Bridger kept reading the other information over and over again. He could barely make his eyes go past the married bit. Lucas married? It didn't sound right. But there it was. He now knew who the Audra was that Lucas had been talking to his friends about.

**_(Author's Note - back to Lucas's quarters)_**

"I haven't written anything in a long time, Richie," Bill admitted. I tried to write a few things in college. Even made some money on a few of them. But mostly I got told by my college professors that I had no imagination at and kept getting F's for grades in my English classes.

"Like I told you before, when Audra died, I never did much of anything any more," Lucas explained.

"Not even writing. When Audra was alive, she was my guiding hand and supporter. I used to get asked all of the time where I came up with such dark ideas for my stories. Before I would just tell them anything to get them off my back, but now when I go back and think a while, I realize that the inspiration for all of my stories was probably always Georgie."

"On this boat, I am the Chief Computer Analyst. I write software and keep the ship's main frame computer going," Lucas told them.

"You always were the smart one mush mouth," Richie said to Bill.

Lucas was taken a back for a minute. Richie hadn't called him mush mouth in a long time.

"Okay you guys, let's go and have some food," Lucas suggested, trying to clear the tension and fear in the room.

* * *

"I've lined up some food for us all. When were done eating, we can come back here and discuss what it is exactly that we are going to do."

All five teenagers got up from their positions and followed their leader Bill out of his quarters towards the conference room he had set up. Once he guided them into the room, he quickly excused himself and made the necessary trips back to the ship's galley to collect the plates of food.

It was on his last trip back, with only a handful of napkins and coasters for drinks that something laying just outside the conference room's door that caught his eye. He was glad he wasn't carrying anything breakable, because he would have dropped due to his fear anyway.

He picked up the item and stared at it a few minutes. He concealed it in the palm of his left hand and walked into the conference room.

Back in the Ward Room, Bridger had instructed O'Neill to turn on the hidden video camera and start recording what was going on visually.

They were just in time to see Lucas walk back into the room and lock the door behind him.

Lucas walked over to the table were everyone was seated. He put the napkins down, but everybody could sense that something wasn't quite right.

Lucas's face was quite pale. Even Bridger and the crew could see this through the lens of the camera.

"I found something outside in the corridor," he said as he tried to talk. His mouth was particularly dry and he needed a drink of water to continue. Unfortunately, appearing only 17 on the boat, he wasn't able to supply his guests with any slightly stronger alcoholic beverages.

"What did you find, Bill?" Bev asked as she watched her friend battle with his fear.

Bill opened his hand and displayed the object.

To Bridger and the others the items seemed harmless enough. It was a large orange pompom. Like the ones you would find on a clown suit at the circus.

Lucas's friends saw the orange pompom and stifled back screams of terror. Richie Tozier and Ben Hanscom even moved their chairs away from the table in order to get away from it. Beverley had hidden her face in her hands.

"Sorry guys, I just thought you needed to know," Bill said apologetically. He placed the pom pom in a drawer in the room, out of sight. Richie and Ben moved back towards the table, but there eyes still showed the fear that they all felt.

"Like you said, Bill, he's trying to chip away already," Richie said.

For the next hour or so, things seemed to be going along without much to worry about. Bridger and the others could see Lucas enjoying himself with his friends. And he was enjoying himself. He was openly smiling, cracking jokes and laughing out loud often.

They all continued to hear little bits of information about each other's present lives.

Bev talked about her designs she was working on. Richie told them all about the club gigs he was planning to do over the next few months.

Ben told them about his projects at college that revolved around his architecture skills. None of them doubted Ben's ability to built things. He had shown them all at the age of eleven how to built a dam. By 1985 he had built and designed some of the most prominent buildings in the country as well as oversees.

The subject somehow got onto the subject of dating and marriage. They all knew about Bill's marriage to Audra.

"So how long have you been married for now, Bill?" Richie asked.

"Audra and I got married in 1976 that would make us married 46 years this year," Bill said with pride and a little sadness. It should have almost been a golden wedding anniversary for them.

"You take it from me, Haystack," Richie warned his large friend. "Better dead then wed."

"How many times have you been married now, Richie?" Ben asked at the conclusion of this statement.

"Oh I don't know four or five times, who the hell keeps count," Richie said while laughing.

Bridger and the other's found it hard to take in what these young people were saying. Here they all were talking about the successful lives they each had apparently lived and the marriages they had been through and to look at them now, not one of them looked a day over 17 years old.

* * *

Half way through the meal, everyone was just beginning to relax when something else hauntingly familiar took place in the room.

Suddenly the five young people could hear Pennywise's distinct laughter in the room.

It sounded just like it had to Lucas on the Bridge that day. They all froze and started to cringe at the sound of it.

Amazingly this time, Bridger and the other's in the Ward Room also thought that they could hear the voice of a circus clown. They couldn't work out where it was coming from, but they could definitely hear something.

They could see the terror and fear distilled in Lucas and his friends. Why were they all so afraid of clowns?

Lucas and his guests looked towards the ceiling when they heard a distinct bang overhead. When they looked up, to their horror they could see dozens of coloured balloons drifting down from the ceiling towards the table.

Bridger and the others could also see the balloons coming down from the room. They all thought it was something that Lucas had arranged for his friends. They couldn't have been more wrong.

Lucas and his friends jumped off their chairs and back away from the table towards the edge of the room. They all had bemused looks of horror on their faces. Balloons had never been a favourite party decoration for any of them.

Bridger and the others watched the cascade of colour, trying to work out what was so frightening. They all wanted to race into the room and ask what was going on, but they knew that if they did, their little game of secret listening would be found out.

None of them wanted to know what Lucas's reaction would be to him finding out about their little deception.

They watched the balloons start to drift onto the table. It seemed strange that these normally fragile items could bounce on the surface of the table without bursting.

All of a sudden they did start to burst. And to the horror of everyone. Lucas, his friends and the people in the Ward Room, when they did burst, instead of popping loudly like normal balloons should do. The noise they heard was a very wet sounding one.

As the balloons burst on the table and the floor, they spilled their contents of bright red blood. Well it looked like blood anyway. It was convincing enough to make Lucas and his friends scream in sheer terror.

Suddenly, while their concentration was on the balloons in the room, the Video Screen came to life.

The face that they all saw appear on the screen was Pennywise. He was right up close to the screen and snarling at them with his fang like yellowing teeth.

Bridger and the others in the Ward Room couldn't believe what they were seeing on the screen.

Lucas and the others had all huddled together in a group. He stood in front of them all, trying to be the strong one in all of this for them all, just like he had been years ago.

Lucas could feel his own body trembling at the sight that had haunted his dreams for so long.

_**SO YOU ALL THOUGHT YOU COULD RUN AND HIDE DID YOU?**_

_**WELL I GOT NEWS FOR YOU ALL - THINGS HAVEN'T CHANGED ONE BIT**_

_**JUST BECAUSE YOUR IN A DIFFERENT TIME ZONE.**_

_**I WILL STILL KILL YOU ALL. KILL YOU ALL I SAY.**_

_**I AM YOUR WORST DREAMS COME TRUE, I AM EVERYTHING YOU EVER WERE AFRAID OF.**_

_**I WILL KILL YOU ALL.**_

_**I AM ETERNAL - I EXIST IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS - SPACE AND TIME ARE NOT BARRIERS TO ME - I WILL KEEP APPEARING AND REAPPEARING WHENEVER THE TIME IS RIGHT AGAIN.**_

_**REMEMBER YOUR FRIENDS STANLEY AND EDDIE - THEY'RE DOWN HERE WITH ME NOW - THEY FLOAT TOO YOU KNOW - THEY ALL FLOAT - AND WHEN YOU ARE ALL DOWN HERE WITH ME - YOU'LL FLOAT TOO.**_

_**KILL YOU ALL ... KILL YOU ALL...**_

Pennywise started to fade from the screen and his voice appeared to float off in to the distance, but the fear was still there. They could still see his horror looking made-up face and colourful clothes dancing before their eyes. They could still see the yellowing teeth and smell the stench of death from within.

"Billy Boy," Richie said in a hoarse voice, "I don't know about you, but I really need to get out of here right now. This place isn't any more safer than anywhere else."

"I think your right, Richie," Bill said as he tried to gather his composure. His face was still a little pale and the shakes in his hands were still visible.

"We're with you too, Bill," the others chanted and the five young people followed Bill Denbrough out of the conference room and towards the launch bays.

Lucas hadn't thought about asking permission before taking one of the shuttles. They all just needed to run as fast as they could.

Now with too many events from the past resurfacing, Lucas found it hard to think about his current life. He had almost totally forgotten about his friends and family on board the SeaQuest. Back with these five friends, it almost seemed as though they had never been apart at all.

* * *

Back in the Ward Room, Bridger and his crew could see how scared the teenagers were.

They had seen the look of terror in their eyes. They had seen the clown threatening to kill them all.

None of them could fit all the pieces to this giant puzzle together yet. But something bad was definitely happening and no matter how much they wanted to deny it, Lucas seemed to be caught right in the middle of it.

"Quick Commander there trying to leave the boat," Bridger shouted at Jonathan Ford.

"Get to the control panel and stop them leaving, NOW!"

The Commander tried his best to manually override the ship's launch bay codes and prevent Lucas and his friend leaving the boat, but he wasn't quick enough.

Lucas and the four others had managed to scramble into one of the shuttles and had sealed the hatch up. Lucas had flown to the pilot's seat and started hammering in codes on the dash board.

"Everyone sit down and put your seat belt's on," Lucas shouted back to them without looking up from the control panel. "This is going to get a little rough."

Bridger was shouting into the Communicator trying to get in contact with Lucas and his friends.

"Lucas, stop please. Tell me where you are going. Please don't leave. Please tell me what's going on."

Lucas could hear the Captain's voice. He regretted that he had to lie at all to this man that had never done nothing else but offer him unconditional love.

"Sorry, Captain but this thing is bigger than the both of us. I don't know if I could tell you what's going on. I don't think we really know ourselves yet. Please remember that I always loved you. That was never false and if I ever get to come back I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me." Lucas said. His words were hurting him and the Captain and everybody listening could hear it.

"What are you all running from, maybe I, I mean we can help you," Bridger said in desperation, trying to stall the teenager's escaping.

"To tell you the truth Captain, I don't know that we even know what we are running from anymore. Maybe we are running from ourselves more than we know," Lucas said in all honesty.

"See you around, Captain," Lucas said in a tone that was devoid of emotion. Lucas knew that he had to distance himself from the SeaQuest and everything about it at the moment. He had to concentrate on being Bill Denbrough at the moment.

With that Lucas made the shuttle race away from the SeaQuest in great haste. He had shut the shuttle's radio off so that he could no longer hear the Captain's pleas to turn around and come back. As he sat in the pilot's seat with his back to his friends, the silent tears threatened to fall freely down his face.

The shuttle made it journey towards the surface...

* * *

Back on board the SeaQuest, everyone was just sitting stunned, trying to work out what had happened over the last couple of hours.

They had just met four people who claimed to be Lucas's friends. They had heard these people call Lucas by his apparently secret identity of Bill Denbrough. Somehow this all was just too much to take in.

Bridger didn't care what the reasons were for Lucas leaving. Something told him that Lucas was putting himself and his friends in danger and he was powerless to stop it.

Suddenly the SeaQuest gave a few loud shakes and shutters. The lights went out and there was no sound to be heard anywhere.

"What the hell is going on, Commander?" Bridger asked Ford in annoyance. The ship falling apart was the last thing he needed right at the moment.

"I don't know Captain, I will try and find out," Ford said as he tried to feel his way around in the dark. He bumped his knee into a small coffee table in the room and let out a colourful string of profanities.

Just as his hand stumbled across the door's airlock, the lights came back on. There was a low pitch hum in the room that indicated that Life Support Systems had been restored at least for the present.

"Come on everyone, let's go and check out what's going on," the Captain announced.

He would have to leave the Ward Room and Lucas reluctantly for the time being until they could find the source of the power failure.

When they all reached the Bridge, there were a few blinking and flashing lights on the various consoles and work stations, but that was it. Something was still very wrong with the SeaQuest.

"Give me a diagnostics Mr O'Neill and Mr Ortiz," the Captain ordered. None of the panels in front of him displayed any helpful information.

"Captain, something is really weird here," O'Neill said as he tried to assess what the readouts were telling him. He looked over at Ortiz to see if his friend could shed any light on the problems. The Cuban just shrugged his shoulders at the Lieutenant, signalling that whatever was happening was a complete mystery to him as well.

"What are you getting, Tim?" Commander Ford asked his chief communications officer.

"That's just it Sir, I am not getting anything. No radio, no W.S.K.R.S., no sonar, no radar, no tracking systems of any kind are working.

"Same here Captain, Sir," Ortiz informed the people on the Bridge.

"There's no power at all except for Life Support. No weapons, no propulsion. We're dead in the water," Ortiz added.

"How is that possible?" Captain asked impatiently.

"Lieutenant O'Neill open the View Screen and give us a view of the ocean would you please?" Bridger ordered.

"Aye Sir, opening Vid-Screen," Tim said. The first attempt seemed to show that there was no power to that system either.

After a few more attempts, Tim was able to do a manual override and get the shutter on the inside to open sufficiently to show them a view of the sea surrounding them.

What they all saw amazed them and left them feeling as though something weird definitely was going on. Everything outside seemed to be frozen in time. There were fish and other marine creatures in view, but they were in a position of suspended animation.

Their bodies were frozen in the movements that they had been making when time stopped. Some of them were swimming straight ahead, others looking to be trying to swim to the surface but not quite getting there.

Bridger and Commander Ford looked at their wrist watches. The second hands were not moving. The digitial clock on the Bridge had been on the same time now for the last ten minutes. Everything seemed to be halted except them inside. They were able to move about and talk to each other inside, but they were not able to communicate with the outside world.

They weren't able to make contact with anybody by radio or any other form of communication. They didn't even know if anybody apart from Lucas knew where they were.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Twilight Zone," Tony Piccolo said from the back of the Bridger.

* * *

Everybody tried to laugh at the joke, but somehow they knew what Tony was saying was true. There was no rational explanation as to what had been happening on the ship.

There was no rational explanation to what they had heard Lucas and his friends saying before they left the SeaQuest. Maybe whatever they were running from was affecting the SeaQuest too.

"Let's go back to the Ward Room and try and work this one out," Bridger suggested, trying to keep the crew calm.

Everybody was grateful for being able to stick together and eagerly followed the Captain. Some of them looked back over their shoulder as they left the Bridge trying to fathom out what was going on.

When they reentered the Ward Room, they were surprised to see a visual picture of Lucas and his friends aboard the shuttle on the screen. They had been able to hear Lucas, but they had thought that had been made possible by the receiver hidden in Lucas's watch or the shuttle's radio.

Lucas wasn't wearing a hidden camera anywhere that would normally have enabled them to see what was going on. Strange things were really starting to happen to them all.

"Let's just see what happens for a little while," Bridger said as he looked at his watch and it still hadn't changed time. There was no way of knowing how much time had elapsed since the strange beginnings began.

The others nodded their head in agreement, all a little nervous, but willing to wait out whatever was causing the weird things to happen. They didn't have much of a choice. With the boat's propulsion system shut down they couldn't go anywhere.

**_(Author's Note - the SeaQuest will remain in a state of suspended animation for almost the remainder of this story. Nothing outside the boat moves. They cannot receive or send communications. They will not age during this time. They will be exactly the same age and in the same time that they were before everything started. )_**

They all tried to focus on Lucas and his friends to see if they could shed any light on what was going on. As they watched the screen, it seemed that Lucas and his friends were totally oblivious as to what was going on aboard the boat they had just left.

The shuttle was just docking at the pier that Tony had picked up Lucas's friends from earlier. The five teenager's disembarked and now stood together talking.

Bridger and the crew seemed to be able to see and hear what was going on a lot clearer now than before. They could see that the teenager's were visibly afraid of something.

"What do we do now, Bill?" Richie asked for the others. His hands were in the pockets of his pants, but they were pushed down as far as they could go, trying to hide the nervousness that he felt right now.

Bill thought a minute on what best to do next, "Let's go back to my place and talk things over for a bit more. There's plenty of room. I haven't been back there for a couple of years now. We can talk about it over night and decide where to go in the morning. I have got a car over in the warehouse there," Lucas told them as he pointed towards the large building a few metres away from the pier's edge.

Lucas went over to the warehouse on his own. He told the others he would bring the car out to them.

Bridger and the other's wondered how Lucas had hidden a car away from them all of this time. The boy had barely gotten his driver's license.

The bright headlights of the car drove slowly towards the four people huddled in a group near the pier. The car was a silver coloured Porsche sports car. It had metallic paint and spoiler on the back. It looked like it should belong to a Hollywood Movie Star rather than somebody like Lucas.

Lucas's friends were just as impressed as his friends watching on the SeaQuest.

"Very nice, Bill," Richie whistled as he ran his fingers along the smooth paint work.

"Must have set you back a couple dozen novels huh?"

"Not really, about 250 000. I bought it just before Audra died. It has been stored away here out of sight all of this time," Bill admitted.

"I never had much of a chance to bring it out and show it off before. Nobody aboard the SeaQuest would have ever believed it was mine."

"I don't suppose you would consider letting me drive, Bill? Richie asked hopefully.

"You've got to be kidding, Tozier," Bill said in mock amazement, "After the way you used to drive that red Ferrari of yours."

"Picky Picky," Richie replied. Bill and the other's came out laughing at their friend's disappointment.

"How far's your house, Bill?" Mike now asked.

"It- its about an h-h-hour's drive from here M-Mike," Bill stuttered. He had barely finished the sentence when the horror of his own voice struck him. Everybody else around him had heard it and saw the look on his face. They all knew that it was tearing at Bill down deep inside.

Bev walked up to him and put her arm around him. Bill's hands were shaking slightly and his face had lost some colour.

"Been a long time since you done that Huh?" Bev asked softly.

"Yeah, too long, Bev," Bill admitted. "I guess it's like riding a bike, you never forget how. That's the first time in since that last time in Derry in 1985. I was always told it might come back. Something about it being repressed in my subconscious somewhere."

"How did you overcome it before, Bill?" Richie genuinely asked. "I don't mean to be rude old friend, but sometimes you used to almost turn blue you stuttered so badly."

Bridger and the other's had heard the stutter but put it down to the fear they had seen in Lucas's eyes. They had no idea that he had ever stuttered badly before at any time. He always seemed to be well spoken, maybe a bit quiet and softly spoken at times, but well spoken anyhow.

"After what we did in 1959, I spent the next four years going to lots of different speech therapists in Bangor Maine. I used to travel every second weekend with my mom over there. They taught me to speak slowly. It was the first trick they showed me.

Before I introduced myself to anybody, they told me to think of my middle name," Bill explained.

"Before Georgie died, I used to stutter moderately. I was hit by a car when I was three. I spent two whole weeks in the hospital. The doctor's said that I had a concussion and that's what caused my stuttering. After Georgie died it got a lot worse as you all know."

"I could barely speak two words without tripping over my own words. I used to get so embarrassed at school that I just didn't put my hand up in class anymore to answer the questions. I managed to get by like that until I saw this speech therapist. She taught me how to speak French."

"Whenever I thought I was going to stutter, like when I said my name, in my mind I just said it in French. When I went to say the actual words in English, they came out normally. That trick really saved me a heap of times."

"When we travelled back after 1985 I suppose trying to forget all about Derry and what we did back then helped to hide the stuttering. Until just a few minutes ago. Funny how old things come back ain't it" Lucas said.

Bridger and Kristen had tears of their own as they listened to Lucas's heart felt story about his speech problem. How many other things were there about this boy they loved that they didn't know?

"Come on you guys, let's get g-g-going," Bill said as he climbed into the driver's seat. He buckled his seat belt and waited for everyone else to climb in. He turned the key and started the engine. He hadn't felt anything so good for a long time. The rev of the motor sent ripples of anticipation through his body. He placed one hand on the leather covered steering wheel and one hand on the gear stick.

Lucas looked back and tried to think of the most appropriate line to say at a moment like this. All together again and about to embark on another hair-raising adventure. The right words came into his head. The very ones he had learnt so long ago. The only words he had been able to say as a kid that he didn't to stutter.

He gave his friends all a sly smile and wink as he shouted _"HI-YO SILVER AWAY!!"_

He gunned the car and took off down the road. The adrenaline rush he felt from the V-8 engine under the hood was better than anything else.

* * *

Bill drove the car down the highway. At first there was no indication that anything was wrong. They were just enjoying the ride together. Somehow the speed underneath them made them feel almost invincible.

Mike had been sitting in the front passenger seat beside Bill. He was admiring the nice wooden dash board with gold trim. It really was some kind of car. Much more than he would have been ever been able to afford on his meager salary. His fingers reached down and began fiddling with the radio controls Bill was watching the highway and noted with a little nervousness that the highway had become strangely deserted for the last couple of miles.

Normally the number 9 highway was a busy road with a great number of vehicle in both lanes. Now looking at the opposite side of the road Bill couldn't see a single oncoming car. He looked in the rear view mirror and noted that there was nobody behind him either.

He knew it was getting on a little bit at night, but it still felt too eerie for his liking. Mike finally managed to come across a radio station playing music. However, the five of them just looked at each other as they heard the lyrics of the song playing.

"_DON'T IT MAKE YOU WANTA GO HOME_" Joe South sang out on the air.

Mike just looked at everybody else and turned the radio off all together. For the next few minutes, everybody sat in silence. Lost in their own thoughts about where they were headed and what they were about to take on.

Suddenly the radio came to life again. They all looked at Mike to see if he had turned it on again. He shook his head at them when he saw their questioning looks.

Before anybody could comment further, a crackling static sound started emerging from the radio. It sounded just like when it wasn't quite on the right frequency and you got all the static and noise in the background.

Somebody finally spoke from the other side of the radio. Bill had hitched in his voice in fear and almost veered off the road when he heard who it was. It was Pennywise again.

**_YOU ALL THOUGHT YOU COULD ESCAPE DID YOU?_**

**_WELL YOU THOUGHT WRONG. I AM IN CONTROL OF YOU. I CONTROL_**

**_THE AIR YOU BREATH, THE DREAMS YOU HAVE. I CONTROL EVERYTHING_**

**_ABOUT YOU. YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE ME UNTIL I HAVE KILLED YOU ALL._**

Bev was now crying in the back seat at the sound of the clown's threats. Richie was comforting her. Ben was wringing his hands together from his own fear. He was gripping them so tight that his knuckles had begun to turn white.

**_SO YOU WANT TO PLAY A TIME GAME - I'LL GIVE YOU A TIME GAME. ONE THAT_**

**_YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO RUN AWAY FROM._**

**_I AM GOING TO SEND YOU BACK. BACK TO THE BEGINNING. LET'S SEE_**

**_IF YOU CAN START ALL OVER AGAIN AND SURVIVE THIS TIME._**

The voice on the radio had finished and Pennywise was gone. Everybody in the car was still trying to get their breath back.

"What did he mean, Bill?" Ben asked. "What did he mean go back to the beginning?"

"I don't exactly know Ben, but I don't think we are going to like it," Bill said. He tried stepping down on the gas peddle a bit more. Maybe they could out run the monsters.

Bill looked ahead and could see that they would be soon entering a tunnel. There were a few of them along the highway. They broke up the monotony of the road.

Bill had both hands securely on the wheel. He was concentrating on the road ahead when he felt something start to rub against his hands from the steering wheel. Whatever is was soon became more noticeable as Lucas saw finger like things starting to emerge out of the middle of the steering wheel.

Before he could let loose the scream that was caught in his throat, he felt the barbed end of the long narrow fingers pierce his hands and hold them tightly to the steering wheel.

Lucas screamed in agony as the needles began to dig into his skin deeper. He tried to pull his hands away from the pain and the steering wheel but the force against him was too great. The others were screaming as well, Mike was trying to pry Bill's hands away from the monster or whatever had a hold of him.

The more Bill tried to pull away, the more the fingers wrapped tightly around his hands, preventing him from loosening his grip on the steering wheel.

A bright light coming from ahead made Lucas lift his pained face towards it. He no longer tried to pull his hands away. He was frozen in his fear as he saw the entire tunnel ahead bathed in an eerie white light.

The other's in the car also looked at the light and couldn't believe their eyes. The car was headed right for the light.

"_DEAD LIGHTS_" Lucas shouted to the others.

They were headed right for the Dead Lights. He tried to pull at his hands again but couldn't. They were only a few metres away from the entrance to the tunnel now. They turned their faces away from the light, trying to shield their eyes against thebright white light inside.

They all began screaming as the car started to disappear into the tunnel. The screams were loud and full of terror.

Bridger and the other's aboard SeaQuest could only watch on in terror of their own had they saw Lucas and his friends being dragged or pulled towards some sort of bright white light.

They had heard Lucas say the words_ DEAD LIGHTS_.

They didn't know what they were but they heard the fear etched in his voice. They saw the blood dripping from his injured hands that were held to the steering wheel.

They were powerless to help. They had all begun shouting the teenager's name, hoping that some miracle would come and help save Lucas and his friends. They had to shield their own eyes from the bright light as they watched the rear spoiler of the Porsche disappear into the tunnel.

As the car disappeared into the light, time was pealed back in layers. Every thing seemed to be happening in slow motion. Those inside the car looked outside the windows but only saw the blackness of space and time. They found their thoughts going back in time.

Going back and back until they had no memory of the present or future.

Then the light had disappeared, they looked back towards the screen. It was now clouded over with darkness. There was no tunnel, no car, no friends and no Lucas.

Bridger had walked up to the screen and pressed his nose to it to see if he could see anything on the other side. There was nothing there now but an empty space. He didn't know where Lucas and his friends had vanished to.

* * *

**_(Author's Note - Bill and his friends have now returned to August 1959. They are all 11 or 12 years old again. They have no memory of what they did in 1959 or 1985. They have not met Pennywise yet. Georgie Denbrough is still alive and 6 years old. They have gone back to the beginning - with the future still to be written)_**

Bridger stepped back from the screen and continued to look at the screen. Slowly, the screen began to show some colour. It was a funny looking colour though. Almost like a sepia coloured photograph.

Then before he or any of the other's in the room could start to say anything, the room began to lose focus. They all began to feel strangely light headed. It was like they were on an endless Ferris Wheel ride at the carnival.

"Nathan, what's going on?" Kristen asked in a voice that didn't sound like her own. She about and could see that somehow her spiritual self had been separated from her physical being. She could gaze down at herself. Her body seemed to be asleep. Her eyes were closed and she looked relaxed. All of the others in the room could see similar images of themselves.

Bridger had been standing up last time he remember, but now his body was sitting down on the floor with his back leaning against his office desk. His eyes were closed as well as if in sleep.

"Try and keep together people," Bridger said trying to calm the nerves of his crew.

They all felt themselves being taken away from the SeaQuest. They couldn't stop their strange and ghostly journey. They couldn't feel the weather outside. There seemed to be a breeze, but it didn't affect them as they travelled.

They found themselves drifting aimlessly on the clouds. Where they were headed, they couldn't rightly say.

Just as suddenly as the journey had begun, they found it ending again. Their bodies were being settled gently on a street corner. The pages of time had been turned back.

They were all still dressed in their UEO issued uniforms, but nobody in the street seemed to notice their presence.

Tony Piccolo tried to put his hand on a telephone pole. He missed when his hand passed right through and he found his ghost-like body in a heap on the pavement.

They were found themselves in the streets of some little town. They saw a sign on a building that said CENTER STREET DRUG STORE - DERRY - Established 1950.

They were all caught in some type of time warp. Everything looked like it might have back in the 1950's and 1960's. There were houses with little picket fences and gardens all around. Men were dressed in trousers and suspenders. Ladies wore printed patterned dresses and hats.

"Are you seeing what I am seeing, Captain?" Tony Piccolo asked.

"Yes Tony I am seeing what you seeing. I don't now how and I don't know If I believe it, but I'm seeing it," Bridger answered. The Captain looked over at the rest of the crew and saw the same look of disbelief on their faces.

Everything that they had heard Lucas and his friends talking about was becoming true. Somehow they had gone back in time to before any of them had ever been born.

They watched on with a little dread about what might happen next. How much more of Lucas's strange tale would become true?

They started to make their way down the everyday streets of Derry Maine. They could see the street names as they passed them by.

It must have been raining for quite some time because most of the gutters were overflowing into the storm drains at the end of each street.

They passed Witcham Street which was blocked off to traffic due to the flooding. There was quite a bit of debris in the storm drain. Branches of trees, leaves and even rocks in some places.

Their sub-conscious seemed to be telling them where to go. They now were able to controlled where they walked, but it was some invisible force pulling them towards an unknown destination.

They travelled down the street and a house suddenly started to come into view. Something told them that this is where Lucas was at the moment. Again they didn't know how they knew, they just knew. Some sort of life force was attaching theirspirits to Lucas. Wherever he was, apparently it was automatically deemed that they would follow, no matter where their friend would go.

It was a modest two-story bungalow with a white picket fence like the other houses on the block. They all walked up to the front door. They couldn't knock out of courtesy, but found themselves to be able to walk right through the solid wooden door as though it wasn't there.

They all checked themselves over once they were on the other side, just to make sure every part of them was still there. Inside, on the ground floor, a young woman sat at a piano playing the tune Fur Elise.

The started to walk up the staircase to the second floor. It was in the room at the far end of the hall that they saw a sight that truly shocked them and left them feeling as though they were caught in some sort of bad dream.

Sitting up on a single bed in the room was Lucas Wolenczak. Or Bill Denbrough as he should have been known as. But this version of him was younger, much younger. The boy couldn't have been any more than ten years old.

Bridger and the other walked in to the room and stood along the wall, watching what was going on before them. They felt like the fly on the wall that saw and heard everything. Lucas didn't seem to be able to sense or see them either.

The younger Bill looked as though he was sick. He was pale and wan in the face and he was hacking up congestion from his lungs into some tissues from a box beside him.

There was an even younger boy in the room with a red checkered shirt on and blue denim overalls. He was playing with a large rubber ball in his hand as he talked to Bill.

"Read me a story Bill, pleeassseeee Bill please," Georgie begged his older brother.

"G-go a-a-way Georgie, I don't feel to hot right now," Bill said as he leaned back against the pillows on his bed.

"The magic storm story Bill, please, Bill," the little boy asked persistently.

"G-go bug somebody else Ya little cootie," Bill now said with a little annoyance.

Bridger thought it was strange somehow. He couldn't imagine Lucas being an older brother, but somehow he fell into the role quite well. He could remember being a younger brother himself and pestering his older siblings just like this young boy was doing to Lucas. He had to smile too at the choice words that Lucas called his younger brother. He had been on the receiving end of some rather colourful descriptions too when he was growing up.

'Cootie' wasn't one of them though. Bill saw his younger brother's face fall at the remark. Georgie was about to turn around and leave the room in disappointment.

"Guh-Georgie," Bill stuttered before the boy reached the door. Georgie turned around and saw his brother Bill leaning down over the edge of his bed and looking for something under it.

Bill felt around for a moment before resurfacing and bringing with him something made of newspaper.

Bridger and Tony just groaned out loud when they saw the object. It was like de-ja-vu all over again. They couldn't believe what they saw in Lucas's hand. It was the same boat that Tony had found floating outside the SeaQuest only a few days earlier.

The other's in the room just looked at them with puzzled faces.

Bridger briefly explained about Tony finding a boat like that one a few days earlier and what Lucas's reaction had been when he saw it. Somehow the boat that Bill Denbrough held in his hand now was the same boat that had appeared on board the SeaQuest some seventy three years later.

Bill held the paper boat out towards his little brother in a offer of peace.

Georgie's eyes lit up with excitement and he moved forward to take it from his brother's hand "You made it for me?" he asked almost unbelieving that Bill could be this generous.

"Can I go sail it?" the little boy asked with anticipation.

"We-well y-you have to s-s-seal it f-first with par-pah-parafin," Bill explained. "Otherwise it will just sink when the water soaks it."

Georgie hurried off to do his brother's bidding. He went down into the cellar, although it was very dark and scary. He didn't think he had been gone more than a few minutes when he heard his brother yelling from his bedroom.

Bridger and the other's watched as Bill Denbrough called out to the younger boy, "Did you d-d-die out there Juh-Georgie?"

"No, I'm gettin it, Bill," came the reply.

"W-well hurry u-up would ya," Bill said with a little impatience creeping into his voice.

Bridger and others just watched the scenes played out before them. Sometimes they would see a lot of Lucas Wolenczak in Bill Denbrough. The cheeky grin, the twinkle in those blue eyes. But then there were comments just like these last ones and the sound of impatience in his voice that just didn't fit the Lucas personality at all.

Normally Lucas was notorious for his patience and understanding. It was one of the characteristics that drew people to himand like him from the moment they met him.

Georgie had grabbed the box of paraffin from a shelf in the cellar and ran back upstairs into Bill's room with it. The sound of the cellar door slamming behind him echoed through the entire house.

"Georgie you waste," Bill said and both boys just giggled at each other. "We need a small knife, some matches and a bowl," Bill instructed.

Georgie went off without questioning his brother what the various items were for. Bill would explain in his own good time.

Bill started to cough a little. A little and then a little harder. When Georgie walked back into the room, he could not see the worried look on the faces of the invisible crew as they watched Bill struggle to get enough air into his lungs.

Bill had buried his face into his hands as was turning red in the face from the coughing fit. He fumbled with the pitcher of water on the bedside table and poured a small amount in the glass beside the bed. He put the glass to his mouth and slowly sipped the water. His first gut reaction was to gulp the water as fast as he could, but he knew that was the wrong thing to do.

Georgie had begun to worry too about his brother's coughing and contemplated whether or not to go and get their mother. Before he could make up his mind, Bill had stopped coughing and seemed to be getting himself under control again. His face was still red though.

"You alright, Bill?" Georgie asked.

"Yeah, thanks for a-as-asking," Bill replied as he continued to sip at the glass of water.

Bill motioned for his brother to give him the items he had requested. Georgie placed them all out in front of him on the bed.

Georgie, and the others in the room them watched in silence as Bill went about showing them all how to waterproof a paper boat.

Bill cut a small amount of the paraffin off the large cube with the knife and placed it into the bowl. Next he lit one of the matches and melted the paraffin in the bowl until is was a sticky liquid. Bill then dipped his index finger into the bowl and started to smear the warm substance onto the newspaper boat. It left a smoky coloured haze on the news print. The wax like substance dried almost instantly.

"I'm gonna go sail it," Georgie announced as he held out the boat that his brother had made for him.

"You'd better put all of this stuff away first," Bill told him. "Make sure you put on your rain coat too before you go out."

Georgie appeared at the doorway a few minutes later dressed in his yellow rain coat still clutching the little boat in his hand.

"I wish you could come too," he said with a note of sadness. He started to turn away towards the staircase ready to go out.

Bill quickly scrambled off the be, "Juh-Georgie, don't stay out too long or mom will have a bird."

And then Bill said something that would echo in his brain for years to come "Juh-Juh-Georgie be careful."

Georgie looked at his big brother for a moment, a little confused by the last comment. But then he just assumed that Bill was being the typical older brother.

Bridger and his crew watched as Bill settled himself back on his bed and appeared to go to sleep. Something in the back of his mind told him that they should follow Bill's little brother. They hadn't liked the tone of voice that Bill had used to warn his younger brother to be careful. It had an edge of fear in it.

* * *

Bridger looked over at Lucas and decided that it would be alright to leave him for a few minutes. He and the others made their way downstairs and out of the house using their strange ghostly apparitions and started to follow little six year old Georgie.

Bridger and the crew followed Georgie Denbrough as he sailed his newspaper boat along Witcham street in the puddles left over from the rain storm. The boat was sailing great and it didn't even look like sinking thanks to the sealing of wax on it's outside.

The little boy cheerfully followed his boat down the gutters as it made it's way through the murky coloured water.

It wasn't until he saw that it was about to be swallowed up by a swollen storm drain that he cried out his disapproval. "No, please No" he said in a small voice as he saw the boat disappear into the dark drain. He bent down on his knees trying to see where the boat had gone, but it was too dark to see anything.

He was bitterly disappointed. Somehow he had to go and tell his sick big brother Bill that the boat he had just made for him was now lost forever. He started to get up from the gravel road when he heard a voice from within the storm drain.

Bridger and the other's could hear the strange sounding voice as well. They noted that it sounded like the voice that they had heard in the Conference Room when Lucas and his friends were having their party. It was the same voice that they had heard over the radio in Lucas's silver Porsche, just before it entered the tunnel on the free way.

"Hi Ya Georgie" the voice said in a happy voice.

Georgie stopped his motions to get up and looked back into the storm drain, trying to work out if he had actually heard somebody calling his name.

When he looked for the second time, he could actually see someone in the drain. It was a clown. Just like the ones that you saw at the circus. A real life, red nosed, white made up face clown.

"Aren't you going to say hello, Georgie?" the clown asked his young visitor.

Georgie shook his head but didn't say anything.

"Aw come on," the clown said trying to coax a verbal answer from the boy.

"I'm not supposed to take to stranger's" Georgie answered in a firm voice. "My dad said so."

"Very wise, Georgie, very wise of your dad indeed," the clown answered. "I am Pennywisethe Dancing Clown. You are Georgie. So now we know each other correct?"

The clown was using little children rationality to put his point across. If you twisted something long enough, in the end it came out sounding exactly how you wanted it to sound to someone else.

Tony and the others wanted to intervene and stop this clown from talking to Bill's little brother. Tony had forgotten about not being able to touch or feel anything in his present state.

"I gotta go now," Georgie announced. He was beginning to feel a little afraid of this clown that had suddenly appeared in the storm drain. It was a most unlikely place to find a clown Georgie told himself.

"GO!" the clown snapped, "Without this," he said in a calmer voice as he held up Georgie's newspaper boat.

"My boat," Georgie said excitedly.

"Come on Georgie, take it," the clown said as he held the boat just out of the boy's reach.

The boy would have to put his hand into the storm drain to retrieve the boat.

"You want it don't you, Georgie?" the clown asked. "And there's fries and cotton candy and all sorts of surprises down here."

"Balloons too?" Georgie asked. Balloons were his favourite decoration. He loved the colours and the fact that they seemed to float in the breeze without any effort at all.

"Balloons of all colours down here too Georgie" the clown asked with a grin.

"Do they float?" Georgie asked seriously. He didn't like balloons that burst at the first touch. He liked to let his go into the breeze and watch them float skywards.

"Oh yes Georgie, they float," the clown said with anticipation in his voice "They float".

Bridger could see that the buttons on the clown's colourful suit matched the one they had seen Lucas carry into the party on the SeaQuest. The one his friends had screamed in terror from. Something told them that they had to try and get this boy away from this clown before it was too late.

Kristin watched in horror as she saw Bill's younger brother reach his hand into the drain trying to reach the paper boat. Without warning and before any of them could do anything, they saw the clown creature seize hold of Georgie's arm.

Before their very eyes, the clown changed. Changed into a hideous monster with fangs instead of a smiling face. He pulled on the little boy's arm, trying to drag him into the drain.

"And when you're down here with me Georgie, you'll float toom" the clown snarled.

Georgie Denbrough was screaming in pain. Screaming as he felt his arm being pulled up against the grate of the drain's cover. The clown didn't stop his yanking on the boy's arm and suddenly there was a terrible tearing of flesh sound.

Kristin and the others had turned their heads away almost physically sick at the sight before them.

Little Georgie Denbrough looked up at the sky with sightless eyes. His left arm had been completely torn of and now there was a steady stream of red blood flowing from the wound. The blood mingled with the murky water and then flowed downinto the storm drain.

A man had turned up at the drain upon hearing the child's dreadful screams. He couldn't believe what he saw. He stood in shock for a long time as he gazed down at Georgie Denbrough's dead body.

The man had gone back to his house and gotten a quilt. He now wrapped the little boy's body up in the material and walked back down Witcham street with the limp bundle in his hands towards the Denbrough residence.

How could he have hidden such a terrible secret for such a long time without telling them? How could he have not told them they he had a brother who had been brutally murdered?

* * *

A few hours later, Bridger and the others slipped into the hospital emergency room in their unseen presence. They could see a very pale faced Bill sitting on a bed while Sharon and Zack Denbrough held onto each other and cried for their lost son.

The next day, Bridger and the other's stood in front of Bill and his family in the local town cemetery as little Georgie Denbrough was laid to rest.

It was raining again. Bill Denbrough stood on his own while the rain soaked his clothes. He didn't seem to notice. He was trying to hide the tears that were running down his face.

A few of his friends, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Stanley Uris and Eddie Kaspbrak stood a few feet behind their distraught friend.

Bridger and his crew noted that the friends standing behind Bill were younger versions of some of the friends that had come aboard the SeaQuest. They recognized the girl with long braids and the red-headed boy with glasses. There was two they couldn't place. One dark-haired boy would they would later recall as Stanley Uris and a smallishsickly looking boy who stood huddled in amongst the others. His name was Eddie Kaspbrak.

to be continued...

Jules


	2. The Photograph Album

**IT - REVISITED AND REDONE**

**By Jules**

**(AUTHORS NOTE - From now on - we just assume that Bridger and the others** **can see and hear what's going on. There will be occasional comments about** **their feelings towards what's going on, but they may not be mentioned every** **few lines from here on in.)**

Later that evening, Bridger and his crew could only watch on with the heaviest feeling of sorrow as he watched the Denbrough family deal with their grief.

They were all seated in the living room, apparently watching television. Sharon and Zack Denbrough sat on opposite ends of the couch. Bill sat in the middle between them. There was no love or compassion in this room tonight. All three were lost in their own thoughts about Georgie.

Bill was thinking about the other nights they had in front of the T.V. when Georgie was alive. There would be jokes and laughter. Bill and Georgie would be fighting over the popcorn. But that was now all in the past. He doubted that watching television would ever be the same again.

Neither of Bill's parents looked at each other, or at their other son. Bill felt like he was only in the way. He felt that he was another burden that his parents had to deal with at this point in time. He picked himself up off the couch and trudged upstairs.

Bill went into his room and threw himself onto his bed and just cried.

The next morning things hadn't gotten much better in the Denbrough house. Tony and the others felt totally helpless as they watched the three people walk around the house. They moved and seemed to be able to talk, but inside, the warm of light and love that had been there before was now gone. It was like that old saying: _The light's on but_ _nobody is home._

Bill had walked from his room into the hallway. He spotted his father coming out of Georgie's room with a box. It contained toys, books and a few other little boy possessions.

Sharon Denbrough had been coming up the stairs when she spotted what her husband had in his hands.

Bill saw the anger on his mother's face and pressed himself up against the wall, trying not to be seen.

Bridger and the crew also leaned up against the wall, feeling like they were in the way, but of course, their presence to the outside world still remained unknown.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HIS THINGS!" Sharon Denbrough shouted at her husband.

Zack Denbrough flinched at the venom in his wife's words and walked back into Georgie's room and started placing the things back in their rightful places in the room.

Bill now walked into the room and saw his father on his knees beside Georgie's bed. Bill saw that his father was crying.

"D-Duh-Dad," he tried to whisper. He had not seen his father cry before.

"Get out, Bill," his father snapped. His voice was shaking as he said the words. Bill wanted to go to his father and tell him that everything would be alright. But at the moment he didn't really believe that himself.

Bill left the room and walked down the stairs to hear the sounds of his mother crying in the kitchen. Bill now voice his fears and sorrow out loud for his friends to hear: "Why are they crying so far apart?"

Bill just sat down at the top of the stairs and put his head in his hands and cried on his own. Bridger had tried to go and comfort the distressed boy. But it broke his heart that he couldn't reach out and touch the one that needed him the most right now.

Later that night, something happened to Bill that would remain with him for a very long time.

While his mother and father were once again seated in the living room at opposite ends of the couch reading a book and magazine, Bill walked upstairs to his brother Georgie's room.

Just the thought of walking into his little brother's room now, caused him to start breathing rapidly and caused his legs to feel like jello.

Bill was convinced that the room was haunted. There was so much of Georgie's presence in the room. He would have been terrified out of his mind, but not totally surprised if Georgie's one-armed ghost had been hiding behind the door.

When he walked into the room he could smell the little boy in everything in the room. He saw memories from the past as he watched the curtains in the window. He remembered the two of them playing together as he rubbed his hand along the bedspread.

His heart felt heavier than ever as he realised for perhaps the first time since Georgie's death that he would never see his little brother again. Sure he would have the memories of how much time they spent together. They had laughed, they had cried together over the years.

They had teamed up on many occasions as allies and defeated the Indians that tried to invadethe territory as they played cowboys out in the back yard. He absentmindedly wiped the salt water away from his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. He really missed his little brother so much already.

He felt that at least by coming to this room he was able to hold onto something more tangible about Georgie. His memories would remain at least for a while before they faded into the distance with time. The thing he was most afraid of was when the time would come when he would remember nothing at all about his little brother.

He wouldn't be able to remember his smiling face, the deliberate part in his hair, the squeak his new sneakers made on the lino floor in the kitchen. The precious moments spent together with his brother and as a family would start to mingle into one another until he could no longer tell any of them apart and Georgie's unique and quirky personality was lost forever.

Bill got up from the bed and went over to a set of book shelves in the room and started to look at the items that were on display. These were the same items that his father had put into a box and carried out of the room before his mother had spotted him.

Bridger and his crew now watched as Bill took a large dark covered book from the top shelf. It had been on top because it was too wide to stand upright in the shelves below.

The book turned out to be a photo album. The words **_MY PHOTOGRAPHS - GEORGE ELMER DENBROUGH - AGED 6_** were written on the front cover in very neat letters.

Georgie had shown a keen interest in photographs at an early age and collected all sorts of unwanted photographs from his family. He cut out clippings from the local newspapers and displayed them carefully between the plastic covered pages. They would serve as a reminder of happier times in the Denbrough family.

There was a photo of Bill just after he had been struck by the car at age 3. His head was swathed in bandages and almost made him become invisible against the white walls of the hospital room.

Bill had turned the pages slowly and carefully as though they were so fragile that they would break at any moment. He felt a little bit like a thief looking through his brother's possessions without his permission. But then again Georgie wasn't here anymore to ask permission was he?

The last photograph in the book displayed a photo that almost made Bill heart break into two complete halves. It was a photograph that had been taken of Georgie only a few weeks before his death. The boy had his hair parted slightly to the side and slicked down with water. Georgie was wearing a blue and white striped t-shirt and navy blue school shorts.

Georgie was smiling that famous gappy toothed smile and Bill could almost believe that he was smiling back at him.

Bill rubbed the tip of his thumb over the photograph as he tried to hold back his feelings of grief and loss at the vibrant little boy that they all missed so much.

Bill was about to close the photographs album and put it back on the top shelf when something happened that he would not forget for a long time to come.

Suddenly Georgie appeared to move in the photograph. Bill blinked to make sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

Bridger and the others were able to see the photograph moving on the page.

It was now that Georgie now winked back at his horror stricken brother. Bill screamed out loud at the gesture from his brother and threw the album across to the far side of the room.

He stared with utter fear at the book which lay against the wall and put his trembling hands to his mouth to suppress any more screams that might escape his open mouth.

The book started moving again. It opened up at the first page and started to flick through to the pages in the back. Once again Bill's wide and frightened eyes came to rest on the photograph of his brother that had winked back at him.

Bill waited with dread at what might happen next. He didn't have to wait long before the book slammed shut with an echo. Now something started to ooze out from underneath the haunted book. It was blood.

It started to seep at first but then started to flow from underneath the cover and pool around the floor in puddles.

Bill couldn't hold back his fear and he screamed again. He couldn't hear the strangled and scared cries from Kristen as she and the others watched the site in horror as well.

Bill heard footsteps behind him and looked around to see his father and mother running into the room.

"Bill are you alright?" Zack Denbrough asked as he put his hands on his son's shoulders to calm him down.

Sharon Denbrough's eyes became fixated on the photo album across the other side of the room. She couldn't see the blood that was around it. She walked over and picked it up.

Bill tried to warn his mother "Mom, don't you see..." he started to say before he was interrupted by the interrogations from his father.

"What were you doing in Georgie's room?" he asked sternly.

"Georgie's picture dad, Georgie's picture" he stammered. "Mom..."

"I don't ever want you coming in here again son," Zack now said to his son. "I mean it Bill."

"Yes, Dad," Bill said as he watched his mother place the album back in its rightful position on the top shelf. When she took her hands back down, they were stained crimson from the blood that had soaked into the cover.

Bridger and the other couldn't do anything but watch Lucas struggle with his emotions as he tried to figure out what he had just seen and whether it was real or not.

* * *

Later that night Bill had another experience during his sleep that had sent waves of fears down his young body. The crew had watched as Lucas would whimper and cry out in his sleep but they couldn't see what made him cry out from his dreams.

The dream involved him sitting in class at Derry Elementary School. He was in the fifth grade when his teacher had stood in front of the children with an announcement for the class.

Bill sat at a small wooden desk at the front of the classroom. Eddie Kaspbrak his best friend sat behind him.

Stanley Uris another friend of Bill's sat behind one of the new students in the class Ben Hanscom. Beverley Marsh sat to Bill's left with Richie Tozier behind her desk.

"Children, I have prepared a test for you today. While it's not the only test you will have this semester, it leans a good deal towards your final assessment for the year. It may determine whether or not you pass the fifth grade and move on next year

Bill gulped a little at the thought of his short term future riding on his one surprise test. He secretly hoped it was easy enough and he would be able to pass it. "The test is a little different from usual in that it will in the form or an oral essay," the teacher now added.

It was those four little letters that brought the most fear to Bill Denbrough. _ORAL._ The mere thought of having to speak in front of his class sent shivers down his spine. He couldn't pass if the test was an oral one.

"I will call your names out alphabetically and give you the intended topic. You will have a few minutes to think of your essay in your head and then you will stand up and face the class and tell it out loud to everybody," the teacher continued.

"Oh just great," Bill said to himself. His surname had to start with a D didn't it. Most of his friends had nothing to worry about. Richie's surname started with a T and Stanley did even better with his name beginning with an U. Even Beverley and Eddie had a little more time to prepare than he had.

"Looks like the first person will be Henry Bowers," the teacher said. She looked in the direction of the rebellious boy and saw the immediate scowl come to his face.

"I'm not doing any stupid essay you old hag," Bowers said. The brave children in the room laughed out loud at his outburst. Bowers snickered and waited for the teacher to make the next move.

"Go to the principal's office, Henry," she said annoyed. "You will remain for one hour after school every day this week to complete your essay."

"My father will tan my hide" Henry said trying to weasel out of his predicament.

"Well you should have thought about that earlier," she said and pointed her outstretched hand towards the door signalling for him to start walking.

Henry got out of his chair and gave her an angry look as her walked past her out the door of the classroom towards the prinicpal's office.

"Now class" the teacher said trying to keep the other children's minds on their upcoming test. "Let's see who's next?"

_"Please don't let it be me... please God don't let it be me first" _Bill said underneath his breath.

"Bill DENBROUGH," the teacher said and suddenly everybody's eyes were on the blond haired boy as he tried to shrink into his chair away from the stares.

"Okay Bill, I want you to give a talk about your holiday to the seaside during the holidays," the teacher now instructed.

Lucas thought for a minute and had an idea in his head, but like always, the problem wasn't coming up with the answers, it was only when he tried to tell them to someone that his tongue got tied in knots and he just couldn't seem to get the words out.

In the middle of his nightmare he found himself stuttering even worse than normally and he could barely put two words together before falling over himself again and again. He could feel his face turning red with embarrassment as the children in the room just laughed at him.

He looked over at his friends and they were laughing at him too, even Richie Tozier. Beverley Marsh was trying to hide her giggle behind the sleeve of her blouse, but Lucas saw it anyway.

It was at this moment that Bill Denbrough sat up in his bed, trembling and shaking from his nightmare. He had almost cried out loud again, but reminded himself of his parents rushing into the room like earlier in the day and thinking he was loosing it.

It was at this very moment when Captain Bridger saw Lucas/Bill do something he never thought possible. There were a lot of things he didn't know about this secretive teenager, but nothing prepared him for the scene of the eleven year old reaching into the draw beside him and pulling out a box of cigarettes.

With all of the experience of a harden smoker, Lucas now took one from the pack and found a box of matches in the draw also.

"Nathan stop him," Kristin said out loud, as she watched in horror as this child was about to put something as poisonous as a cigarette into his body. She forgot momentarily about them not being able to alter the physical world. They couldn't stop him and he couldn't hear their comments about being too young, and what the effects of smoking would have on his young lungs.

Nathan wasn't happy about the situation either as he watched Lucas bring the lit match to the end of the cigarette and light the tobacco.

"I never thought it possible," Tony said as he too whistled at the boy's brazen actions. He had remembered offering Lucas a cigarette on more than one occasion when things had been normal, but on each occasion Lucas turned his head away in refusal and reminded Tony that he shouldn't be putting such things into his body.

Who was calling the kettle black now Tony said as he watched Lucas/Bill lean up against the wall in his room and continue to smoke the cigarette until it was only a butt.

"Me and that boy are going to have a stern talk when we get back," Kristin said and then realised what she had said.

The way things looked at the moment, there was no guarantee that any of them would ever get back to the SeaQuest again never mind seeing Lucas again to give him a lecture on the causes of keeping one's body healthy.

"I think I was about 15 before I had my first smoke," Commander Ford admitted to the crew. "Made me so ill that I never touched the things again." he said with a grin. How old were you Captain?".

Bridger looked at Commander at first with a gaze that demanded why he was being asked such a thing. How do did they know that he even smoked in his life. He then felt sheepish himself and quickly mumbled a number that wasn't quite heard.

"What was that Captain?" Tony said. He had heard the number but wanted to make the Captain feel about three inches tall and admit to being no different from the average teenager.

"Fourteen" Bridger admitted and the SeaQuest crew now broke into a fitful laugh that nobody else could here but themselves.

* * *

Lucas didn't go back to sleep until just before dawn much to the crew's dismay. He had too much on his mind. About 7.00am they heard Sharon Denbrough calling her son down to breakfast before heading off to school. Lucas woke himself up enough to pass for alert and got dressed quickly. He was still very tired, but hopefully his parents wouldn't notice. They never noticed anything else about him.

By 7.30 am, the crew were now trailing Lucas as he rode his bicycle to school. They all smiled at the antics of a boy as Bill got on his beloved bike and yelled his favourite line at the top of his lungs. "HI-YO SILVER AWAY" he bellowed. At the moment he was perched up on top of a crest in the roadway.

Suddenly the SeaQuest crew couldn't believe what they were seeing this dare-devil child do on the bike. One minute he was just cycling at normal speed, the next, with the momentum of the hill and the fast pedalling his was doing, the boy was now ducking and weaving in and out of the morning traffic on the road. A few shrieks escaped from the crew as they watched Lucas toy with death.

If the boy hit something he would be catapulted of the bike and land God knows where. There had been a couple of near misses with the backs of cars already, but the boy didn't stop and didn't show any signs of slowing down. The crew covered their eyes at various points of the daring ride, waiting for the impending impact to happen.

Thankfully for them and Lucas it never did. After a ten minute hair-raising ride, Bill Denbrough was seen to pull his bike up in front of the Derry Elementary School.

"Ready to go back to school," Bridger joked with the crew as they silently and secretly followed Lucas into the schoolroom.

"I hated school the first time," Tony now rebuked. He looked nervously up and down the hallway as they walked in. He knew nobody could see him, but it still gave him the creeps to be in such places. Lucas probably felt right at home in a classroom, but to Tony it felt only slightly less cramped than his prison cell that he had lived in before joining SeaQuest.

Bill was rushing to his classroom so much that he failed to notice someone else coming the other way. The two of them and Lucas barely recovered from the clash before he found himself being hauled up by his school shirt and thrown up against the wall. He was now looking face to face at the one school bully that everyone in Derry Elementary School feared – Henry Bowers.

"You'd had better watch where you are going you little turd," Bowers spat at Lucas. Lucas didn't try and get away from the bigger boy. He knew from experience that if you crossed Bowers, he would just pound you into the ground and then pound you again when you were down. He was just a mean kid and the other kids genuinely feared him.

"I-I'm s-sorry, H-Henry," Bill stammered as he tried to get his fear under control. He was close to tears.

Tony Picolo, like Kristin earlier had briefly forgotten about not being able to help Lucas out in any way and was now suddenly barking at Henry Bowers to let the boy go or he would step in. Lucas never heard him and neither did Bowers or his sidekicks.

"A-ah, I'm not wasting my energy on a baby who can't even talk properly," Bowers said and roughly threw Lucas to the floor. Belch and Victor Cris walked away with Bowers, kicking Bill's school bag and all it's contents down the hallway.

"Looks like I have to go hungry today," Lucas said to himself as he picked himself up off the floor in time to see the lunch his mother had made squashed into the hallway floor. Henry Bowers looked back at the trembling Bill, waiting to see if the kid said anything smart.

He was a little disappointed that he didn't. He would have liked to have had a reason to go back and deck the kid just for the hell of it. Maybe luck would shine on him another day and he would have a reason to cream him.

"A-Asshole," Lucas said when Henry was well out of hearing range. He felt angry and frustrated, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't beat Henry or his friends in a fight and didn't even want to try.

to be continued ...

JULES


	3. 29 Neibolt Street

**IT - REVISITED AND REDONE**

**By Jules**

**CHAPTER THREE - 29 NEIBOLT STREET  
**

Lucas was only just in time to sit at his front row desk when the teacher walked into the room. He gave a huge sigh of relief but then spun around as he felt a tap on his shoulder from somebody.

"Your were cutting it fine Billy me boy," came the smart aleck comment from the boy the SeaQuest crew had come to know as Richie Tozier.

Bill could only nod in acknowledgement as the teacher now began the morning class. All the children looked up and could see a tubby boy standing nervously beside the teacher. The SeaQuest crew recognized him to be the person call Ben Hanscom.

"Class we have a new student at our school today," the teacher said. Ben immediately could feel the redness start at his feet and end up on his face from embarrassment.

"Ben is going to tell us a little of where he is from and a little about himself, so I want you to help him along today until he gets familiar with our classroom."

Ben stood in front of the class, scanning the faces looking back at him for a moment. He was chewing on his fingernails before he started, "My name is Ben Hanscom. My mom and me just moved here from Houston Texas."

After that, all of the confidence he had been able to muster suddenly disappeared through the floor boards and he couldn't think of anything else to share with the class. By all standards he lived a very boring existence, what could he possibly say to this bunch of strangers to make them interested in him or where he came from. By tomorrow, they probably wouldn't even remember his name.

"Welcome to Derry," the teacher now said noting the boy's obvious nervousness. She would have preferred him to share a little more about himself but pointed him towards a chair and desk in the back of the classroom. He was sitting directly in front of Stanley Uris. In front of Ben sat Beverly Marsh and then Bill Denbrough at the front of the room.

The remainder of the morning dragged for Bill and every other student in the room. Bridger and the SeaQuest crew watched on with bemused wonder at what school had been like before their time. Of course most of their attention kept drifting from Lucas's friends to Lucas himself.

Bill Denbrough seemed to have a knack for knowledge almost as good as Lucas Wolenczak did. Bill's only hold back and downfall was his speech impediment.

The bell suddenly rang and all the children ran out of the classroom towards the cafeteria. This was something the crew were surprised about. By the time they all went to school, children were expected to bring their own lunches to school. Today they watched as Bill and his band of five little friends sat at a back table.

The other children from the school sorted themselves out into their various groups and grabbed a table as quickly as they could. There were distinct tables set aside for the nerds, for Henry Bower's group of thugs, the girls and then one or two mixed tables for anybody who didn't fit into any of those categories.

Beverly was the exception to the girls table rule, she preferred to be with Bill and his small group. It was common knowledge that the other more fortunate and wealthier girls made fun of Beverly's clothes and poor upbringing. Her father was the janitor at the school and got by on a meagre wage. Most of Beverly's possessions and clothes came from the second-hand shop or hand-me-downs from generous friends and neighbours.

Ben found himself sitting at Bill's table too because he seemed to fit well into their little mixed bunch. He didn't consider himself a nerd and he definitely didn't like his chances of taking up a seat with Henry Bowers.

Bill had seen him wandering aimlessly for a few minutes looking for a spare seat and gestured for the new student to join them at their table. Ben gladly accepted and sat beside Stanley Uris.

"You not eating, Bill?" came the question from Eddie Kaspbrak as he looked disappointedly at the packed lunch before him. There was some awful pickle and meat sandwich that looked about a week old, a boiled egg and some fruit. His mother was not the best cook in the world.

"Um no thanks, Eddie," Bill said as he looked at what Eddie had for lunch. Richie's mom was able to cook and his lunch actually looked quite edible. Ben's lunchbox looked to be overflowing for the oversized boy.

"You can have my boiled egg," Eddie said with a genuine smile and handed it to Lucas. He didn't have the heart to refuse a second time and showed his gratitude.

"Hey Billy Boy you want to go down to the train tracks on the other side of town after school?" Richie Tozier now asked, changing the topic of conversation.

"You other guys can come too," Richie then added, feeling a little sheepish about forgetting to ask the others at the table.

Ben said that he had promised to go home straight after school to help with the unpacking. Beverley told them that she had chores to do after school before her father got home. Stanley said he was going to one of the town parks to go bird watching.

Eddie didn't say anything about going but the slightly embarrassed look on his face gave his true feelings away. Mrs Kaspbrak thought her son was too sickly to play roughly with the other boys from the school and wouldn't allow him to play with them for the most part. The only time he got to see his best friend Bill Denbrough was at school and one Saturday out of every month if he was extra lucky.

"Sure, Richie," Bill answered. "I'll have to check with my mom first after school, but she's probably sitting at the kitchen table still reading one of her romance novels, so she won't mind."

The bell rang again signalling the end of the luncheon break. The afternoon was no quicker than the morning, but soon 3.00pm came around and the children filed out of the school building one after the other.

* * *

Bill said goodbye to his friends Eddie, Stanley and Beverly, telling them that he would see them again tomorrow. He made an attempt to say goodbye to the new student Ben Hanscom, but Ben had left quickly and was already half way down the street.

The only one left now was Richie. Bill now climbed aboard his bicycle, ready to ride home. Richie Tozier didn't have a bike of his own and climbed on behind Lucas. The two boys were slim enough for the metal frame to be able to take both of them.

Bill now rode back up the hill towards home. On a couple of occasions, he and Richie had to get off the bike and push it up the hill because they didn't have the leg strength to keep the pedalling going on the steep incline.

Lucas got off the bike and dumped it on the lawn outside his house. He and Richie Tozier now went inside the house.

"I'm home, mom," Lucas yelled at the top of his voice as he walked into the kitchen and plonked his bag of school books on the kitchen bench. He now went to the fridge and poured a glass of milk for himself and Richie.

"Hello, Mrs Denbrough," Richie said cheerfully, but all he got was half a grunt as Sharon Denbrough tried to drag her attention away from her reading. She quickly glanced up with a frown at her son's loud arrival from school but quickly buried her head in her book again.

'Me and R-Richie w-were going t-to g-go down by the t-train tracks mom," Bill now said, hoping that his mother would show some sort of interest in what he had planned for the rest of the afternoon.

He just shook his head in disappointment as Sharon Denbrough remained emersed in her romance novel as dinner cooked in the oven.

"See, told ya," Bill said as Bridger and the rest of the crew followed Lucas and Richie back out of the house towards his bicycle again. They could feel the pain that Lucas felt when his mother ignored him. He was crying out for someone to love him and show him some affection. Since his brother's death though, Bill's family seemed to be drifting more and more apart rather than closer together.

The SeaQuest crew watched as Lucas and Ritchie once again mounted together on the small silver framed bicycle and headed in the opposite direction this time, towards the town railway tracks. They were a little bit out of town, so the ride took a little over ten minutes of furious peddling for them to reach their destination. When they got there though they were smiling. The place was deserted. Nobody about to tell them what to do. Nobody to hassle them.

The two boys got off Bill's bicycle and left it on the other side of the train track before continuing their way by foot. Richie walked down the middle of the track, Bill was trying to be a little bit more adventurous and was walking along and trying to balance on the thin track itself. He had his arms outstretched on either side of him and was pin wheeling them on occasions to keep his balance.

A couple of times he failed and found one stray foot hitting the inside of the track. He didn't give up though and started the whole process over again until the next time he lost his balance or concentration.

These were the sort of afternoon's that Bill liked. Just one on one with him and Richie. Richie didn't bombard him with questions like Eddie sometimes did. Richie was more on the same wave length as Bill. He was just looking for a bit of boyhood fun.

Throwing rocks across the canal down at the barrens and just fooling around with friends. Bill didn't really like the crowd thing and preferred there to be only one or two friends to muck around with at a time.

Richie had found a stray stick and now walked along the track, poking at various things on the track as he went along. For the longest time he and Bill didn't say anything to each other. Richie knew that talking was sometimes and effort for his friend and so he was just his friend.

A couple of time they looked at each other and almost burst out laughing to no particular reason. There was just something special about the friendship between these two boys. Even the SeaQuest crew watching secretly could see the rapport that Bill and Richie had. None of them had any idea when Richie came aboard the SeaQuest that Lucas and the kid with glasses had ever been such close friends.

Finally Richie decided to break the silence between them, "So what did you think of the new guy today at school?" he asked his friends. Bill had still been trying his balancing act, but now stopped and faced Richie to answer his question. He had a thoughtful look on his face:

"I don't know. He seemed a bit shy. I guess he was okay. Didn't say too much at lunch," Bill replied.

"Bit on the large size too didn't you think," Richie said stating the obvious about Ben's bulk.

"I guess so, but that doesn't mean anything" Bill said truthfully. He had never been one to judge somebody by the way they looked. He had seen many fat people in his life. It didn't mean that they weren't good people on the inside.

Ben must just like his food. Bill liked his bike. Maybe it was the same sort of fascination for Ben with food. Richie had a fascination for making jokes, although not very good ones. Everybody had a secret love. That's what made each person different.

"Yeah but didn't you think………….," Richie started to say when both of them were startled by a voice in front of them.

"Well look at what we have here boys," came the mocking laughter from Henry Bowers. Henry and his gang were about 100 metres in front of Bill and Ritchie on the train track. Seems as the train tracks was a familiar haunt for some rather unsavoury characters from Derry as well Bill told himself in disgust. He felt very annoyed that somebody else had found their play area and were intending to disrupt their quite and peaceful afternoon.

"We had better get out of here, Bill," Richie said, not wanting to be on the receiving end of a fight with Henry Bowers. At the moment he and Bill were out numbered. But even if they weren't, the odds of Richie or Bill beating Henry in a fight were not very good.

Bill nodded his head without saying anything and the both of them quickly turned and started at a jogging pace back the way they had come. They hoped to reach Bill's bicycle that was left down the track before Henry and his gang caught up with them. Once on the bike, Richie knew that Bill was extra fast and they should be able to easily out run Henry and the others.

"Get them," Henry roared at Victor and Belch, egging his friends to catch up with the geeks first.

The roar of Henry's voice sent Richie and Bill into a faster run. This was one side of Lucas that the SeaQuest crew were also surprised to see. Usually back on the boat, there hadn't been many occasions where Lucas was required to run at any speed or any amount of time.

They didn't really know how Lucas was at running. Now upon seeing him and Richie running, it was obvious that Lucas could run a little bit.

Bill could feel the wind blowing in his face as he kept looking back to make sure that they were sufficiently ahead of Henry and his friends. He was a bit alarmed to see Victor Criss quickly gaining ground on him so faced forward again and put on another surge of speed. The adrenaline from the running and the fear of Henry Bowers was pushing both of the smaller boys.

Bill was the first to reach his fallen bike. As he righted the bicycle and mounted, he found himself screaming at Richie to hurry up so that Victor Criss wouldn't reach them. It was touch and go as Victor neared the fleeing pair. At one point, just as he neared the bike, Richie stumbled and almost lost his glasses.

The delay almost allowed Victor to grab a hold of the back of Richie's shirt. Thankfully Bill was there to pull his friend onto the bike. Bill was already pedalling before Richie could secure his arms around Lucas's waist.

"Hi-Yo Silver Away!" came Bill's catch cry as he tried with all his might to put as much distance between him and Victor Criss.

Victor Criss now stopped running and bent over as he caught his breath, watching the two geeks get the better of him and Henry and ride safely out of reach and down the street. Henry was cursing and yelling various threats as the pair rode away.

He saw a missed opportunity to pound some younger boys, but promised his gang that there would be another chance very soon to extract their revenge. Derry was a very small town. There weren't two many places for the nerds to hide for too long he reminded Belch and Victor. The trio then went back in the direction they had just come from.

* * *

Bill didn't know how far they had ridden before he and Richie had pulled up and fallen over onto a grassy lawn. They both laid on the soft grass laughing out loud at their near miss. The thrill of actually getting the better of Henry and his friends was too much at the moment and they felt upon top of the world. The bike lay were it had fallen after the two tumbled onto the grassy lawn.

Lucas looked back to see where they had actually turned up to. He gulped a little out loud though as he turned to face the house and recognized the address of 29 Neibolt Street, Derry. There were many rumours going around the school and town about just who lived at this address. Many of the rumours were of sinister goings on and all sorts of haunting ghosts and goblins that had taken up residence.

Richie had been still laughing at his and Bill's good fortune until he turned to look at his friend. He saw the smile disappear from Bill's face as they looked at the face. The smile quickly went from Richie's face as well. He too had heard all the rumours and talk about the Neibolt Street house.

Bill had been trying to figure out whether to get on his bike again when he thought he heard a voice whispering to him from the house. He had to listen a second and third time to work out whether there was indeed a voice talking to him.

He thought he had heard his brother George's voice whispering him to come in and play with him. But that couldn't be right……..George was dead. It couldn't be George talking to him could it?

Lucas started to take a step towards the front porch of the house when he felt the hand of his friend trying to pull him back "You're not going in there are you, Bill?" Richie asked in nervousness.

All of the cockiness of beating Henry and his friends now ebbed away at a frightening pace leaving Richie only with his fear of the unknown. He didn't know what was in that house but he was equally sure that he and his friend didn't want to find out.

"This is where they say the guy is that killed my brother George," Bill said in a determined but still scared sounding voice. If there was something in there about his brother's murder, Bill wanted to find out. Bill just wasn't so sure he was ready to face whatever was in there yet.

"You don't know that for sure, Bill," Richie said, trying to use reasoning to get his friend not to go any closer to the house.

"You don't have to go in if you don't want to Richie," Bill told his friend, see his apprehensiveness. He couldn't blame his friend, his own stomach was tied up in knots from the fear he was feeling at the moment.

"I am not letting you go in there alone," Richie now said in a firmer voice. He wasn't about to leave his best friend go into such a place on his own, no matter how scared he was.

The SeaQuest crew just wished they could physically pull Lucas away from this place. They didn't know what was inside, but they felt the same hesitation that caused the boys to pause before going any further.

"You really don't have to do this, Bill," Richie said, pulling on Lucas's shirt again as Lucas took a few steps closer.

"No you don't, Lucas," Tony said out loud, knowing that his friend couldn't hear him, but saying it anyway.

Bill turned to face his friend Richie but Tony felt that Lucas was actually looking at him as well when he answered.

"Yes I do," Lucas said in a very adamant voice. He meant every word he said. Both Richie and Tony and the SeaQuest crew knowing that they weren't about to change their friend's mind. Especially where it concerned his brother George.

Bill felt responsible somehow for Georgie going out that day and he needed to prove to himself that there wasn't anything he could have done to save his younger brother from being killed.

Richie now walked with his friend to the porch at the front of the Neibolt house, hoping somehow to talk his friend out of going inside. The SeaQuest crew were also relying on Richie to convince Lucas not to carry out his words.

To Richie's horror when they got to the porch, Lucas now bent down in front of the porch as though to go under the house. Richie had been scared enough about going up to the front door and looking inside the opaque windows, but now looking as Bill appeared to be wanting to crawl underneath the creepy looking house, now Richie was just plain terrified.

"You're not..." Richie started to say, not really knowing what his objections were.

"Wh-What?" Bill stuttered, his voice betraying a little of his annoyance at his friend's tactics to stall him from doing what he felt he needed to.

"Wait for me," Richie said as he rolled his eyes to himself and gave up trying to stop Bill. He knew that this was a bad mistake and he was going right along with it.

Once they had crawled a good distance, they came across the window to the cellar. The window itself was broken, by what they didn't even want to speculate.

Bill was temporarily trying to look about the room in the cellar to see what was down there. It wasn't until he saw his friend Bill's legs disappearing through the broken window that he caught himself and screamed at his friend:

"What the hell are you doing, Bill?" Richie said in panic. He had gone right along with this whole thing up until now, but he knew that it was definitely a bad idea for them to be thinking about going inside the house. His emotions towards his friend were getting the better of his rationality.

"Get out of there, Bill," Richie yelled again towards a pair of legs. Bill was squirming backwards and forwards on his stomach, trying to wiggle in through the window frame. There were shards of broken glass around and Kristin had to shield her eyes at the thought of Lucas actually cutting himself on the glass as he slid through the window.

Bridger was just white with fear for Lucas and the dangerous actions he seemed to be carrying out. Tony was more vocal than any of them and just like Richie was yelling at Lucas to get the hell out of there and leave things alone that he didn't know about.

This whole new brazen side of Lucas was one none of them had enjoyment watching. At the age of eleven, these kids just didn't seem to sense the danger or know when to leave well enough alone.

Bill was all the way inside. Richie was now sitting down just outside the window underneath the house. He had been too busy trying to calm his nerve down to see Lucas reach out and touch his legs from inside.

Richie just about screamed blue murder when he felt the hand on his legs, not knowing who or what was trying to grab him.

"You bastard, Denbrough," Richie yelled not caring about his obscenities.

Lucas had a slight smile on his face at the unintentional fright he had given his friend. Richie really did have a scared look on his face. Bill immediately regretted not having warned his friend first before touching him.

"You coming in?" Bill asked his friend.

At first Richie was shaking his head and about to tell Bill in no uncertain terms what he thought of that idea, but then Richie caught himself looking around at this current surroundings. The dim, darkness and scary space he was in wasn't much better, plus he was all alone if Bill went on his own inside.

"Okay, but I hate you," Richie said mockingly. Richie now laid down on his stomach and edged himself through the broken window, wincing as he tried to keep out of the way of the broken glass. Lucky we are both skinny he thought to himself as he noticed how narrow and small the opening was.

Richie felt Bill grab a hold of his shoulders once he was almost in and helped him stand up in the cellar. Richie stood for a moment dusting himself off and looking around the darkened room trying to gain his bearings.

"Which way do you want to go?" Lucas now asked, planning for the pair of them to go off in different directions. His logic told him that they would cover more area of the room that way.

"Stuff you Bill. I am right behind you," Richie said with no intention of leaving his friend's side while they were in this dark, moist crypt of a room.

Lucas now led the way with Richie holding onto the back of his shirt. Richie had his eyes shut the whole time and Bill almost lost his balance on a couple of occasions when he felt the tug on his shirt being a bit more forceful. A couple of intend glares from Bill and Richie was apologizing and promising not to do it again.

Lucas was just about to start off again towards one end of the room when the door leading from the cellar to the inside of the house flew open and banged loudly against the wall at the top of the stairs.

Richie and Bill screamed at the top of their lungs. Richie was afraid he was going to pass out from the fright. His heart was slamming into his chest. Lucas couldn't hide the fact of his own fear at the moment.

The two boys hadn't heard the screams emitted from the SeaQuest crew. They had been following the boys in their invisible form but were a little afraid themselves.

Kristin had grabbed a tight hold of Nathan when the door slammed and Tony almost literally jumped a foot high and into Ford's arms. He apologized to the Commander but got a sly smile from Jonathan in return saying it was okay. Tony knew he would never live that one down if they ever got back to the boat.

If they thought their fear was evident before, now they couldn't help but utter heart felt screams of terror as they watched in horror as two legs now started to descend the stairs from the house.

Lucas and Richie were now scrambling over each other to get back to the window and escape. The SeaQuest crew almost found themselves wanting to escape this haunted place. Their fear was greater than their sense of reasoning at the moment. They had momentarily forgotten that they couldn't be seen or heard by anybody.

Richie had overtaken his friend was halfway through the small window opening by the time Bill was behind him. Bill turned around and screamed again as the feet and legs got closer to the bottom of the stairs. He pushed Richie from behind and then tried in haste to scramble through the window himself.

Richie had managed to crawl all the way out and turned around in time to see his friend Bill emerging behind him. Richie was about to turn and crawl back out from underneath the house when he was called back by the screams of terror from Bill.

"RICHIE HELP ME!" Bill screamed as he felt the person inside the house now behind him and trying to pull him back in through the window. "IT'S GOT ME RICHIE, HEL-HELP!"

Richie was frozen to the spot by his fear as he watched his friend try and struggle against the person trying to pull him back inside the house.

Bill screamed again. The SeaQuest crew were trying in vain somehow to make themselves able to help Lucas physically. As the situation turned more desperate and they found they couldn't help, they found themselves screaming back at Lucas as they told him to hold on. They told him that they were going to help him, but in truth they really didn't know how they were going to achieve this.

Richie freed himself from his spot and now grabbed a hold of Bill and tried with all his might to pull him back through the window. He grunted and gritted his teeth as he pulled and pulled at his friends arms. Bill thought he was going to split into two as he felt something pulling on his legs in one direction and Richie pulling his arms in the other direction.

"Save yourself, Richie," Bill now shouted as he felt himself slip back towards the cellar. He didn't want his friend getting hurt. He couldn't bear the thought of someone else getting hurt because of him. Just like Georgie.

"No you can't have him you bastard," Richie yelled at the top of his lungs. He wasn't about to lost the one true friend he had in this world.

Richie now readjusted his grip on Bill's arms and gave one more almighty pull. Bill was now all the way out of the window. Both of them paused for a second, looking at each other's dirt smeared face and trying to figure out what just happened to them. A roar from whatever it was inside brought them back to reality though and both of them now crawled as fast as they could back towards the front porch.

Bill's arms were sore from all the tugging and pulling but he barely gave that a thought as he scrambled out from underneath the house into the bright afternoon sunlight. He quickly looked behind him to see if Richie was behind him. He was relieved to see Richie getting to his feet.

Bill now rushed over to his bike again with the feeling of this had happened once already today. Here they were he and Richie, scrambling to get away on his bike from a more powerful adversary.

He was already mounted on the bike and yelling for Richie to hurry up. "C-Come o-on R-Richie."

Both of them looked back to see if the thing in the house had followed them outside. They couldn't see anything at the moment, but that didn't lessen their degree of fear any.

Bill didn't even shout his cry of victory as he started pedalling. He was too busy trying to catch his breath. A breath he almost didn't have. He had almost been pulled back into that house. God knows what would have happened to him. Maybe he would have had one of his arms pulled off just like Georgie.

Neither Bill nor Richie dared to look back to see if anything was chasing after them. Somehow running from Henry Bowers and his gang earlier in the day seemed like a piece of cake now they were trying to get away with their lives. They would have been completely thankful if they ran into Henry right now and had the stuffing knocked out of them.

At some point as they pulled into a street near Bill's house, the bike started to topple with both of them on it. Richie had felt himself falling off the back of the bike, but didn't have the strength to right himself quickly enough. Bill was able to stop himself falling in a heap, but not before the bike tumbled against the side walk again.

Bill and Richie found themselves lying on the hardened concrete of the footpath this time. No soft green grass. Both of them lay spread eagled as they tried to catch their breath. Their eyes were still darting about with fear, looking to see if anything was still after them.

They both sat up and looked around with the same wary expressions on their faces. They then looked at each other, still no words between them. Then without any warning, the two friends hugged each other. Hugged each other because neither of them had felt so scared in all their lives. Hugged each other because they were almost killed. Hugged each other because they didn't have the words to express how they felt right now.

After an hour, Richie and Bill got themselves under control enough to part company and head to their homes for the night. Neither of them had the stomach for food tonight and they laid awake for most of the night trying to come to terms with what had happened that afternoon.

The next day, both of them held a haunted look that their friends couldn't explain. Richie had told the others about Henry and his friends chasing him and Bill down at the railroad tracks and that seemed the most likely of explanations for their subdued actions today. Richie and Bill made a pact between each other that they would never tell another soul about what had happened at 29 Neibolt Street. Both of them knew that they would never forget.

The school bell rang signalling the beginning of another day at Derry Elementary school. Richie and Bill took their usual places in the classroom, but stole looks at each other throughout the morning. Eddie couldn't be totally sure, but he saw these stares between Bill and Richie and somehow knew that something had occurred the day before. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but he knew that Bill and Richie had become closer friends because of it.

to be continued...

JULES


	4. The Barrens

**IT - REVISITED AND REDONE**

**By Jules**

**CHAPTER FOUR - THE BARRENS  
**

The rest of that school day passed relatively slowly for the loser's club. Bill and Richie had remained disturbingly quietfor most of the day, not even joining in the conversation at recess time in the cafeteria. The others could sense that there was something wrong but Bill wasn't normally the one to share his problems with anybody.

Another trait that would be retained years later and reappear in the personality of Lucas Wolenczak.

When school was let out, Bill and Richie said goodbye to each other and went separate ways that afternoon. Bill went with Eddie down to the barrens while Richie had promised his dad to mow the grass in the back ground so he could go to the movies on Saturday.

Next to doing voice impressions and jokes, Richie's favourite thing in life was going to the movies. It was through the scores of movies that he watched during his childhood that he got most of the material for his stand up acts and it was the actors on the large screen in front of him that he tried to hard to imitate.

Bill and Eddie went down to the Barrens on a regular basis. The area was nice and secluded from the prying eyes of adults. It was shaded by large trees all along the canal and in places there were a series of small running streams that came together into small ponds of water. It was at one of these such ponds that Bill and Eddie were at this day.

Neither of them were doing particularly much. There was still so much on Bill's mind from what had happened the day before. Eddie could see his best friend lost deep in thought.

The area leading down to the Barrens was a steep slope that came down from the main road. It was on top of this road that today's drama was about to unfold. From where Bill and Eddie were standing, they were blissfully unaware of what was occurring just above them.

Ben Hanscom had been trying to avoid Henry Bowers all day at school. If he saw Henry walking down the hallway at school, Ben quickly ducked into one of the unoccupied class-rooms before he was spotted. He heard Belch and Victor Criss talking to Henry as the three of them walked about the halls like they owned the place.

It was only long after he heard their footsteps that Ben crept slowly out of his hideout and headed in the opposite direction. By the time the bell rang at 3.00pm, Ben thought he would be able to successfully make it home without running into Henry at all today.

He knew that Henry was still sore at him about getting detention for a week even though it had been Henry's fault the whole time. With Henry you couldn't bargain. He was always looking to blame something or someone else for his problems.

Ben had made sure that almost everyone else was gone from the school yard before he stuck his head out the door to see if the coast was clear. Once he was satisfied that Henry or his goons weren't about he started walking to the front gate. He then paused slightly to look over his shoulder and then walked casually out the gate, hands in his pockets and whistling a tune to himself. He only had one thing on his mind at the moment………. BeverleyMarsh.

Ben had managed to walk most of the way home and had just walked past the path that Bill and Eddie used to climb down to the Barrens. If Ben had have been taking careful note, he would have noticed a silver bicycle leaning against a tree not far from the roadway.

Ben had been thinking about Beverley when he felt himself whirled around from behind. As he turned around, he swallowed hard as he came face to face with Henry Bowers. Victor and Belch were standing behind him ready to stop his escape route in case he could manage to out manoeuvre Henry.

"Well well, looky what we have here," Henry now said as he and the other two dragged Ben away from the roadway slightly. With what they were about to do, Henry didn't want any witnesses.

"You know I had to spend a whole afternoon in detention because of you, you big fat lazy pig," Henry Bowers spat at Ben. Henry had one hand on the front of Ben's shirt, Belch and Victor stood either side of the trembling boy so there wasn't much chance of an escape. Ben didn't reply to Henry's comment.

"Now what do you think I should do to you for that pig?" Henry said almost politely in a sarcastic way.

"Leave me the hell alone," Ben said as he finally got the courage up to say something to Henry and his thugs about what was happening to him. He started to struggle against the hands that were holding him to try and get away.

"Oh no you don't porky," Henry shouted as he tightened his grip on the front of Ben's shirt to prevent his intended victim from getting away. "That's not the right answer either fat guts."

Henry pulled one of his hands free that he was using to hold Ben and placed it into the pocket of his jeans, doing it slowly enough that Ben and the others could see what he was doing.

To Ben's horror Henry brought out a small pocket knife. Even Victor and Belch looked warily at each other when they saw the small sharp instrument. Surely Henry didn't actually intend to use it they said silently to each other.

Neither of them wanted to get involved in using knives on people. The usual bullying and teasing that they did when they hung around with Henry was enough excitement for them.

Ben started to struggle again as his fear started to multiply as he tried to think of all the possibilities that could be drawn from Henry holding a knife in his hand. The struggling was a lot stronger because of the fear factor and he was beginning to think that he might just be able to break free and run for his life.

"Will you two lame-brains hold him still," Henry barked at Victor and Belch as he felt his one-handed grip slipping.

Victor and Belch complied, not really wanting to cross Henry themselves and suddenly become the object of his attention instead of Ben.

"Your not really going to cut him are you, Henry?" Victor finally voiced worriedly as Henry extended the folded blade and held it against Ben's bare and very white belly.

"What does it matter to you?" Henry shouted back angrily.

"You protecting him or something Victor?" he accused the boy.

"No I just thought………………," Victor tried to say in his own defence.

"Think. I didn't ask you to think. Just do what your told or I give you a little bit of what I am going to give him," Henry now said into Victor's face.

The argument between Victor and Henry was all that Ben needed to escape. Whilst Henry's attention and gaze where diverted for a few seconds, Ben brought his knee up and with all the force he could muster kicked Henry painfully between his legs.

The result was what he was looking for as Henry suddenly roared with pain. Bowers fell to the ground and was grabbing at this crotch area with both hands whilst rolling around on the ground writhing in agony.

Victor and Belch were trying to assist Henry and also let go of Ben. This was his opportunity. He knew that after what he just did, he had to get as far away from Henry as possible. If was even possible he might have to emigrate or something because he knew that Henry would be now out for nothing less than blood.

Ben didn't know in which direction to run, so he tried behind him down into the Barrens. The slope was steep and slippery due to the green grass that had sprouted from the recent heavy rain.

A couple of times, Ben fell painfully to his knees, and almost fell over on his face twice. He didn't dare look back to see where Henry and the other boys were, he had no doubt that they would soon be following him.

"GET HIM!" Henry roared, still with his hands over his rocks. He had never felt such agonising pain in his life and he was damned sure that the fat kid was going to feel a bit of that pain. "GET THAT FAT SON OF A BITCH!"he repeated and painfully got to his feet to follow Victor and Belch who had followed Ben down the slippery grassy slop towards the _Barrens._

Once Ben reached the flattened out ground of the barrens and the area that surrounded the sewer he started to look for a place to hid. He didn't have unending energy to keep running from his chasers and knew that sooner or later Henry and the others would catch up with his ungainly run.

He sent a prayer upwards as he spotted an old abandoned cement piece of pipe laying but a few meters away. He could hear the shouts from Henry and his friends as he climbed into the slime covered hideout. There was something strange feeling on the bottom that felt all gooey but he didn't have time to try and find a nicer feeling hiding place.

He hide inside and waited in silence for Henry and his friends to come running past. His heart was pounding inhis chest and his breathing so hard that he even put his hand over his mouth in case they heard him.

When Ben had stumbled his way down the grassy slope, he was too busy in running and keeping his butt safe that he failed to see that two other people did see where he hid in the cement pipe.

It was Eddie Kaspbrak and Bill Denbrough.

The crew from SeaQuest were also there in their silent form and had listened intently to the two friends as they talked about various topics. They felt a little guilty learning more about Lucas this way but by the same token they were completing fascinated with the other side of Lucas that they had never seen or should have ever known about.

As they listened to the two friends talking, they found out some deep dark secrets that Lucas had been suppressing all this time. Lucas explained to Eddie how he had felt about his brother's death and murder.

About how each day he came home from school to find his parents sitting another few feet apart from each other, slowing drifting further and further away themselves over the loss of their son George.

And Bill was left standing in the middle of them both. He tried to reach out to them and show them that they still had one son who needed love. But the more he tried to reach out, the more he found that he couldn't seem to get any closer. With the death and loss of his younger brother, the Denbrough's had forgotten that there was another son that needed love and understanding.

The SeaQuest couldn't help but think of the similarities between Bill's relationship with his parents after Georgie's death and that of Lucas with Lawrence and Cynthia Wolenczak. Although the physical abuse wasn't there, the lovelessness and distance was frighteningly the same.

When Ben Hanscom had stumbled down the embankment and hidden himself away in the cement pipe, Bill and Eddie had stood nearby not knowing what it was all about. They had been startled by the noise of Ben's fall behind them. They could see that he was running from somebody. It wasn't a few minutes later that they understood why the chubby boy was running so hard.

Bill Denbrough saw Henry Bowers, Victor and Belch come stumbling down the embankment into the _Barrens _in a similar fashion to Ben. Eddie had almost gasped out loud in shock at the older and much bigger boys coming at them. He quickly moved to stand behind his friend Bill just in case.

Bill felt Eddie's trembling grasp on the back of his t-shirt was determined to defend the smaller boy if necessary. Henry and his friends had been as surprised as Bill and Eddie to see someone else at the bottom of the grassy slope. Henry had seen the fat boy talking to Bill and his friends at the cafeteria yesterday and the day before.

Maybe he could bully them into telling him and his friends where the fat kid had gone.

"Well looky what we have here," he said in an over-exaggerated voice as he and the two other boys walked towards Bill and Eddie.

Henry made sure that he was only standing about a foot away from Bill when he asked his question. If the kid even looked like lying, he was in striking distance to deliver a punch for his deception.

"You see a fat kid run by here?" he now asked Bill. The question was directed at both boys, but Eddie was too busy burying his face into the back of Bill's stripy shirt. Eddie could start to feel his chest becoming tight from his fear. He pulled his hands off Bill's shirt and started rubbing at the area to try and get his breathing back to normal.

"I said which way did he go?" Henry now roared and grabbed Eddie by the front of his shirt, pulling him out from behind Bill and making him stand in front of them as well.

By now, Eddie was wheezing so badly from his asthma that he wouldn't have been able to answer Henry even if he wanted to.

"L-l-leave h-him alone," Lucas dared to say to Henry. Although he was a little intimidated by the three of them together, he wasn't about to let them bully around a sick kid. Eddie was his friend.

"What did you say, mushmouth?" Henry now asked, making fun of Lucas's speech impediment.

Eddie was now feeling around in his pockets for his inhaler. He needed it really bad and was having trouble remembering which pocket it was in.

"I said did you see a fat kid run by here?" Henry now said in annoyance, realising that if the fat kid had kept running,that his little detour and talk with Bill and Eddie would have put a fairly good distance between them and him.

"N-No," Lucas now said, helping Eddie with his inhaler. The younger boy was having trouble calming himself down enough for the medicine to be of any benefit.

"You better be sure about that," Henry warned. "A fat kid all mussed up" he added, noting that Ben would be covered in just as much mud and grass from the hill and they were.

"I-I'm sure," Lucas now said, hoping that the boys would soon leave so that he could help Eddie. The longer they stayed around to harass them, the more scared and upset Eddie was going to get.

"I'll be keeping my eye on you, mushmouth," Henry warned Lucas.

* * *

Henry and the other two boys now took off down the other end of the _Barrens_ that would eventually take them back to Witcham Street.

With Henry and his friends gone, Lucas now focused his attention on helping Eddie. "Y-You alright E-e-eddie?" he stuttered

"Thanks, Bill," Eddie said as his voice slowly started to return as the medicine started to help his breathing. For the next few minutes Eddie just sat on the ground breathing deeply in and out, trying to get his breathing back to a normal pattern again.

Bill had been too busy worrying about Eddie to hear any footsteps approach them.

"Are they gone?" Ben now asked sheepishly as he stood beside Bill and Eddie.

Lucas looked up quickly as though startled. He relaxed and even had a smile on his face when saw it was only the new kid standing there and not Henry Bowers coming back to ask questions again.

"Yes-yes, their gone," Lucas replied. He was still pre-occupied with Eddie who was still having trouble getting his breathing under control.

"H-how about I-I go and g-get a some of w-w-water?" Bill asked his friend. Eddie nodded his head in agreement but couldn't find his breath enough to say the words.

Bill didn't want to go and leave his friend Eddie lone, not even long enough to get the water bottle that was neatly tied to his bicycle. He looked at Ben standing there with a box full of candy and saw an opportunity.

"C-can you stay here with my f-friend while I g-go get some water?" he asked Ben. "M-my bicycle is on top of the h-hill. N-not far," he added.

"Sure, I stay here with him," Ben said, but not really knowing what he was going to do if the other sickly looking kid started to gasp and labour for air.

Eddie and Ben both watched Bill race up the hill towards his bicycle. Both knew although he wanted to get up there quick, the slippery grass and steepness of the hill would soon slow him down.

"So whose the other guy?" Ben now asked, indicating Bill. He had seen both Eddie and Bill around the school yard as well as a few other kids with them but he had always held back and been too shy to go up and ask them who they were or if they wanted to play with him. Ben spent most of his school lunch times in the library reading.

"Bill?" Eddie said at first making sure Ben was talking about Bill. "Bill's my best friend. He's a really great guy."Eddie said in appreciation. Bill had always been there for him for when he needed him. Like just right now when Henry Bowers and his gang came scrambling down the hill after Ben.

Bill was coming back now and about half way down the hill when he called out to the other two down below, "I-'mm b-back" he said and held up the water bottle in his hand to show he had succeeded in his task.

"Does he always stutter that much?" Ben asked, not wanting to pry, but the stuttering was hard to ignore after a while. He had even noticed it when they had been in class. The kid could scarcely put two words together without stumbling over himself.

"It's worse since his kid brother died," Eddie admitted sadly. "Somebody killed George. Pulled one of his arms off just like a wing off a fly. I just wanted to tell you because if you want Bill to be your friend, it's best not to talk to him about George. He's all messed up about it," Eddie said.

"I would be too," Ben replied but didn't know what it would really be like because he was an only child.

"W-would be too what?" Lucas now asked as he rejoined the other two and handed the water bottle to Eddie.

"Oh nothing," Eddie replied and quickly took the cap off the bottle and starting drinking before Bill asked any more awkward questions. Neither he nor Ben had heard Bill come up behind him. Eddie just hoped that he hadn't heard any more of the conversation than the last sentence.

"Do you guys play down here all the time?" Ben now asked hopefully, changing the topic of conversation to something more cheerful.

"Y-yeah, Eddie and me, we are trying to make a d-dam," Bill said excitedly, happy to share with the new kid what the two had been doing before Henry and his bunch turned up.

"Want to come here tomorrow and help out?" Bill now asked, noting that it was now late afternoon and they all should be making tracks for home very shortly.

"Sure," Ben said thrilled that he had been asked to come and play. Because they had only just moved to town he hadn't made very many new friends. He was normally somebody who didn't attract many friends anyway.

With the sun beginning to set, the three new found friends said goodbye to each other and made plans to meet down at the Barrens the following day. Each promised to bring some food to share.

The SeaQuest crew found themselves following silently behind Lucas again as he travelled home. Each day they couldn't help but be amazed at each new part of Lucas's life that they learned about.

to be continued...

JULES


	5. The Loser's Club

**IT - REVISITED AND REDONE**

**By Jules**

**CHAPTER FIVE - THE LOSER'S CLUB**

**Author Notes: I have always wanted to do a IT and SEAQUEST crossover. However, for my story, Lucas Wolenczak is for all intensive purposes BILL DENBROUGH at any age.**

**I always like the idea of using Jonathan Brandis for the younger part in the movie and wanted to continue that theme on in my story. I always wanted the SeaQuest crew to see what happened to Lucas's character in the movie. (Yeah I know I am totally nuts right?)**

The next day in Derry was Saturday. Bill Denbrough loved Saturdays, in fact the whole weekend. Because Saturday meant no school. He didn't have to go to school and face the prospect of making a complete and utter fool of himself in front of everyone.

Bill usually found himself playing outside on the weekend's. He would either go to the movies with one of his friends, or ride his bike all over town. Anything that kept him from having to go back to the coldness of home until he had no other choice.

Eddie on the other hand hated Saturdays. While Bill loved school but tried to avoid it because of his stuttering, Eddie used school as his source of escape.

Escape from an overbearing mother who was constantly walking up behind him and checking him over and asking him if he was feeling alright. None of his friends did that at school unless they were genuinely worried about him.

Beverley Marsh hated Saturdays too, but mostly for a different reason than Eddie. Whilst Eddie was always worried that his mother was going to smother him, with Beverley and her father it was completely the opposite. Beverley didn't even need to do the wrong thing and she would often find herself on the wrong end of her father's short temper for no reason at all.

The fact that her father Alvin Marsh often left bruises on Beverley's pale skin didn't go unnoticed at school despite the girl's avid attempts to hide them underneath her clothing. There were all sorts of stories going around the school and town about what went on at the Marsh residence behind closed doors.

On Saturdays Alvin Marsh didn't have to work. He didn't make much money at the school as the janitor and whatever was left by the weekend was normally consumed in alcohol. That's were the problems started for Beverley. Her father would be okay to talk to up until about 4.00 in the afternoon after he had just enough to make him argumentative.

With no mother figure in her life to speak of, Beverley was expected to take on all the womanly chores that went with a household. She did almost all of the cooking, cleaning and laundry. There was often very little money left for food or the necessities and she had learned from a very early age how to make things go just that bit further and how to mend things so they would do until next time.

By the time Bill Denbrough was leaving his house on his bicycle "Silver", Beverley was hanging out the first load of washing on the string line at the back of their house.

Eddie on the other hand had begged and pleaded with his mother to let him go outside. After all the reasons why he couldn't go out and all of the illnesses he might catch by walking down the street and other people, she finally compromised that he could go out in the sunshine for a few minutes.

Eddie didn't both arguing about the time. There were times in his young life that Eddie looked back on and smiled. They were the times when he would give his mother a little lie like where he was going only to do the opposite, like head down to the _"Barrens"_ with his friend Bill.

Eddie usually didn't stand up for himself very much especially when it came to bully's like Henry Bowers. If he had told his mother about the plans he and Bill had made with the new boy Ben the day before, she would never have allowed him to leave the house.

So when his mother agreed for him to go outside in their yard where she could come and check on him, once out of ear shot and eye sight of his mother, Eddie took off down the street as fast as his legs would carry him towards Jackson Street and some fun with his friends.

Ben Hanscom was also on his way down to the Barrens by now. He was so excited about having met two new friends and actually been invited to play with them today that he was on top of the world. He had packed an extra large lunch in a bag, partly to share with the others, but if they didn't take up the offer, he would no doubt finish it all off.

He was rather glad to get out of the house he and his mother were sharing with his aunt Sylvia. When they had arrived after his father's death in Korea, Sylvia had gone to great lengths to remind her sister that she and her son had been given a roof over their head through generosity and Christianity.

Ben didn't really get on with his cousin and often found himself fighting with Miles only to get into trouble and being named the cause. The fights were only making it harder for his mother and he felt guilty about her having to worry about him as well as what they were going to do for the future.

By the time Eddie made it to the Barrens, Bill Denbrough was already sitting on the bank in front of the small stream they had made the day before, tossing in small stones and seeing how loud a "plop" they made each time.

Lucas greeted Eddie with a grin and a cheery hello. Bill could see his friend looking behind him and with a slightly guilty look on his face about the deception he had told his mother. Eddie went on and confessed what he had done to Bill, knowing his friend would understand and wouldn't dob him in.

Bill listened to Eddie's story and then smiled and went back to throwing rocks into the puddle to show him that it didn't matter that he had told such a small lie. Eddie was there to talk to and that's all that really matter to Bill.

The SeaQuest crew had followed Lucas down to the_ "Barrens"_ and watched for quite a while before Eddie showed up, the varying expressions on the boy's face. He had a lot of thoughts on his mind at the moment, both good and bad. Some he was willing to share with others, some he hoped would go away and never come back.

He had more dreams about monsters and George last night. Some of the dreams even had George turning into the monsters. He didn't know what it all meant, he just wanted it all to go away so he could forget.

Just as Eddie sat down beside Bill, Ben could be seen hollering to the two of them from on top of the slope leading down to the Barrens. Both of them waved back to Ben signalling for him it was okay to come and join them.

Ben now joined his two new friends, sitting on the grass covered area around the Barrens. They had come here to build a dam together, but right at the moment, all three were just content to sit there in total silence not doing to saying anything.

Eddie was a little bit worried about Bill's sudden silence today. Normally on the weekend's Bill was the best person to be with. But today each time he looked at his quiet friend, Eddie could see the slight changes in Bill's facial expressions that the crew could see. He too knew that Bill had something on his mind.

"Boy you sure brought enough food there, Ben," Bill said to the new kid, trying to break the silence. He looked at the size of the bag Ben had brought and wondered just how much he thought they were all going to eat today.

Right now Bill didn't have much of an appetite. He hadn't been eating very much at all lately, both at home and at school. It wasn't doing any good for his already thin frame, but he just couldn't bear sitting down at the dinner table at his house at the moment and pretend having a "family dinner" together. The falseness of it all was just too much to handle.

"So what did you tell your mother yesterday, Ben," Eddie asked. He knew how afraid he would have been if he had shown up to his mother all bruised up the way Ben had been after fighting with Henry Bowers yesterday. It made Eddie sick just to think of what he would have to explain to his mother. For starters she would never let him out of the house ever again.

For the first hour, the three friends sat talking, well Ben did most of the talking. Telling Eddie and Ben about his life back in Texas and about his dad as a pilot in the air force in Korea.

For Ben and Eddie, Korea seemed an awful long way across the other side of the world to think about. For them there were a lot more scarier things too close to home to worry and think about.

Eddie could still tell that Bill had something on his mind. He wish he had the courage to come right out and ask his friend to talk about what was troubling him. He doubted that Bill would open up just like that though.

Bill was a complicated person who kept his feelings very well hidden from everyone else. He just had to hope that Bill confided in him at some stage like he often did with his own problems.

Across the other side of the little stream amongst the trees, a shrill whistle call came towards them. Bill recognised the whistle as a bird call. He didn't know exactly what type of bird made that particular whistle, but there was only one person he knew in Derry who knew about birds and how to imitate their calls: Stan Uris.

And wherever Stan Uris was, you could just about bet that there would be another boy with him who thrived on imitations of a different kind: Richie Tozier. Richie tried to do voice impressions. Not always succeeding and often getting ridiculed by his fellow classmates. But no matter how much bad publicity he got in return, Richie never gave up his passion and Bill had to admire somebody for that.

* * *

The SeaQuest crew were fascinated each time these young people got together. When the teenage friends had first come aboard the boat as Lucas's guests, they were thought to be the most unorthodox group of friends.

Looking at the four of them now, when they were much younger, and once they understood a little about each of their backgrounds, it was easier to see how they had come to be such good friends.

They were worlds apart in appearance, but their troubles and dark secrets brought them together in uncertain times.

"Hi Richie," Eddie greeted the red-headed boy cheerfully. "Hi Stan," he added nodding towards the taller, dark haired boy.

"Hi Eddie-spaghetti," Richie shot bag and grabbed a full hand-full of the younger boy's hair, giving it a good ruffle along the way. It usually came every time Richie said hello to Eddie.

"Stop doing that, I hate it when you do that Richie," Eddie said crossly. But truth be known, this little circle of friends in front of him would be the closest ones he would ever have.

As time drifted by and Eddie looked back ten years or more from know, the one thing he remembered about Richie Tozier apart from his red hair, bad jokes and glasses, was the way he would almost always ruffle Eddie's hair.

"Oh you love it Eddie-spaghetti," Richie retorted in fun. "Hi Bill," he then added, as he looked towards Lucas's thin frame and blond hair.

Just about the time the four boys said hello to each other, another figure appeared from behind Bill, but this was certainly no boy. In fact it was Beverley Marsh.

All four boys knew Beverley, and all of them thought she was much prettier than most of the other snobbish girls at school. Beverley might not have worn expensive clothes or played with dolls like other girls her own age did, but that was okay in their eyes. It made her fit into the group even better.

"Hi," Beverley said in a very sweet voice, but the whole time she was looking at Bill. Lucas was looking at Beverley too and smiling back with a silly grin on his face.

"Ah young love...," came the comment from Tony Piccolo as he watched a younger version of his room mate make eyes at a girl barely eleven years of age.

Boy did he ever get things totally wrong about Lucas. All the time he had spent trying to get girls more interested in him by taking him out to places and it was plain to see that some girls just got all sweet by just looking at that shaggy blond hair and blue eyes. Give them the added touch of sadness mixed with innocence and Lucas had the perfect recipe for catching a girl.

"He certainly doesn't need your help by the look of it, Piccolo," Brodie poked in fun back. The other crew members laughed lightly along with him.

"Want to join us, Beverley?" came the question from Eddie when he thought things were getting a little too uncomfortable between Bill and Beverley. He thought they were great together but didn't think it was right to tell it out loud. He might make Beverley upset and Bill wouldn't like him for telling or making Beverley upset.

"S-sure," Bill said immediately and with no hesitation. He didn't have the slightest problem with Beverley joining in their group. Stan and Richie had no objections and so Beverley sat down with the four boys on the bank of the Barrens. Lord knows what her father would think or do if he caught her anywhere near there let alone in the company of boys.

Beverley sat beside Lucas while the other three boys sat slightly apart from them. Bill and Beverley quietly chatted away to each other for a few minutes, catching up on what had been happening at home and at school with them both.

There were very few secrets between them all including Richie, Ben, Stan and Eddie about their individual lives and problems. They shared so many familiar similarities that it was hard to overlook that they were only childhood friends.

Ben, Eddie, Stan and Richie had been chatting away at how best to tackle the idea of making a larger stream out of the one nearby. Ben was the engineer behind the whole project and had loads of ideas for them to try.

Richie decided to get the whole group together a little more, including Bill and Beverley.

"Hey, I have got some cigarettes I sneaked out from my Dad," he announced proudly to the rest of the group. "Anybody want one?"

Kristin could barely control her frustration at seeing a much too young Lucas once again reach out his hand and take a cigarette from the packet Richie held out in front of him.

Beverley was no shrinking violet either when it came to doing things they were supposed to. As long as they didn't get caught and her father didn't even find out, she was willing to take part just like the rest of them.

"He'll have lung cancer by the time he is sixteen," Kristin said, not really trying to be harsh towards the boy she knew only as Lucas. Back in 1959 there was no literature about the harmful effects of tobacco smoking and children and young people started at a relatively young age.

Bill wouldn't really be aware of the causes and effects of smoking until about 6 years from now when the disease lung cancer would prematurely take the life of his father.

"They are just kids, Kristin," Bridger said trying to defend Lucas and his friends a little. "I did it too," he admitted. "Didn't you?" he then asked.

"Yes... when I was fifteen but...," she stopped halfway through knowing that her own experiences during her teenage years were not all that different from what she was watching in Lucas and his friends now.

Stan and Eddie had all refused the offering. Eddie because he was too afraid of what his mother would say if she smelled such a thing as cigarette smoke on his clothing. He still had to explain about where he had been yet without adding to his list of activities for the day.

Stan had also refused but more because of the strict religious beliefs that his parents had instilled in him about putting foreign things into his body that was supposed to act as a temple of some sort.

Ben had taken one just to join in, but he was a little embarrassed to say that they had never taken a puff of a cigarette before. Bill and Richie looked as though they knew exactly what to do. He felt like the new kid in school all over again.

When Ben looked back on these days years from now, it would be the nick name that he was given that would stick with him for the majority of his high school and college years: Haystack. Mostly because of his short spiky blond hair.

Ben liked it and thought it an honour to be given a nick name by any of the group. The name didn't take long to catch on and almost from that day forth, Ben was always known by that name.

Eddie had been given a nick name which he didn't really appreciate as Eddie- spaghetti. Richie usually called Lucas Big-Bill and Stan was just plain old Stan. Somehow a nick name just didn't seem right for the Uris boy. There were just not too many nick names you could come up with from using a name like that. Beverley was often just shortened to Bevvie.

* * *

Instead of building the dam that they had come to build, for the majority of the time they remained down in their secret little spot, Bill told them stories. Eddie always loved listening to Bill's stories. He always had the best imagination about things that happened long ago like in the days of King Arthur and when knights went off to fight dragons.

Little did Eddie know that the reason Bill was so good at telling stories was that was his escape world from reality when things got to bad for him at home. Sure he was good at the details and making up the characters.

Often he wished he could just fall into those fantasies and live out the lives of the characters he made up just to keep from seeing all the monsters in his head and stop from seeing the ghostly image of his brother pointing the finger of blame at him each night.

Bill started another one of his stories for the group as they huddled around and listened. By the end of it, the SeaQuest crew where thoroughly amazed by this hidden talent that Lucas seem to have abundance of. He had never shown much interest in an artistic way before.

"No wonder he wrote books for a living," Kristin remarked as she recalled the list of writing achievements and published books that had appeared on the personal history of Bill Denbrough.

"You gotta write that one down, Bill," Eddie now said in praise of his friend at his ability to put words together so perfectly. "That's one of my favourite," he added.

"Yeah really great, Big Bill," Richie agreed. He always tried to make jokes with words not put them into well constructed stories the way Bill did.

Stan and Beverley also voiced their appreciation for Bill's story telling ability.

"Big Bill is going to leave this one horse town one day and be a famous writer one day," Richie now said to the group.

"I don't know about that Richie," Bill said in reply. "I'm not sure I want to grow up at all."

There were too many things that had scared him silly over the last few months and that was when he was a child. He didn't know what was out there in the real world for him when he grew up. There may be no monsters to speak of, but then again there might be new monsters with just different names to try and trick you.

"I want to grow up," Eddie said excitedly, a little saddened by Bill's sombre mood at the moment. "I want to set out and see the world," he added, giving away his childhood dream for some time.

"Oh yeah right Eddie-spaghetti, your mother won't even let you cross the street," Richie joked back.

Eddie's mood soon joined Bill's when he realised that Richie was right. If he wanted to see the world, it would probably be on the T.V. or something because there was no way his mother was going to let him leave Derry on his own.

"What about you, Bev?" Ben asked. He was secretly developing feelings for this girl with the long braids, but he knew so long as Bill was around he didn't stand much of a chance. One look at himself compared to Bill and Ben knew that he was out of the two horse race before it even got started.

"I don't know yet. Maybe drawing or something. My dad has been teaching me how to draw," Bev replied. A few cherished minutes once a month or so when her father could put two words together without anger and the smell of alcohol on his breath.

"I think I want to do something with numbers," Stan said as he plucked up the courage to join in the conversation. It was almost no contest as to who was the most quiet and conservative member of the group.

"I think I want to be a pilot like my, Dad," Ben said with pride. He knew very little about his father before he left to fight a war in Korea. There were a few photos of him his mother had given him dressed in his uniform.

"Or maybe the Navy," he said in hindsight - knowing it was quite difficult to get into the Air Force. Looking down at the bulge around his middle at the moment, he wasn't sure he would meet any fitness tests for any of the armed forces.

"The Navy...," Lucas said with a scoff in his voice. "No way Haystack. Not for me. I hate boats. I hate being anywhere near boats. I never want to be on a boat," he said with finality.

"Looks like you just lost a crew member, Captain," Tony jibed back to Bridger. The crew had laughed lightly at the children as they pondered what they would all do later on in life.

The thing that haunted Bridger the most about what they were currently seeing and witnessing. According to Lucas and the clown they had heard talking, these children had already done this part of their lives. They had already lived it but he had made them travel back to do it all over again.

Had any of it changed already from the last time? What if any of it did? How would that alter what would become of Lucas again later in life this time. If the history changed to dramatically so would the future. So much that it might be that the crew would never meet Lucas Wolenczak. Lucas might not exist at all after this was all over - what then?

* * *

"Hi everyone," came a small voice from just in front of them. The six of them had been so wrapped up into listening to Bill's stories and telling each other about their future dreams, that they hadn't heard anybody's footsteps approaching.

At first they looked up slightly startled, but then smiled as they recognized the dark figure of Michael Hanlon standing in front of them. He looked to be holding a book of some sort.

"H-Hi, Mike," Lucas greeted the new comer. He didn't have any objections to having a dark-skinned friend in the group. Nobody else voice any objections either. Mike was welcome just as the rest of them were.

When it came to being different from other kids, Michael Hanlon was certainly head of that committee. With his negro background, he often found himself on the receiving end of unsavoury comments and derogatory remarks about how black people were only second class citizens.

Commander Jonathan Ford had been fortunate to grow up almost two decades from now where the gap of equality had become smaller and smaller. He still got some racial bias now and again, but nothing like was the norm up until the early 1990's.

"Can I sit with you guys?" Mike asked, looking about and seeing most of the group were kids that he had never had a problem with at school.

"S-sure, M-Mike," Bill said as he felt the others looking at him to make the final decision. Like it or not, Bill found himself to be leader of this small little band of misfits whether he chose to be or not.

"What have you got there, Mike?" Ben asked as he moved over slightly to let Mike find a bare patch of ground amongst the group.

"Oh this is just the book I brought into school the other day that my father showed me. It's got lots of historical pictures of Derry in it. Right back to when people first came here," he said with a little pride.

His father was good with knowledge about the town from long ago. People chose to think of Derry as just another dirty little backdrop town and tried to ignore that it ever had a past. Most of them certainly saw no future in Derry for themselves.

Mike started turning the pages of the book on his lap one at a time so the rest of them could see them. Whilst they looked at the pictures in silence, there was only one feature in each of them that stood out.

There were photo's of the school house many years ago with a man standing in front of it as it burned - the date was 1932. There was another photo further on of a factory that was destroyed by an explosion - the date on that photo was 1905. Again there was a man off to the side of the photo clearly visible that held all of their attention.

"That's not possible," Bill heard himself saying as he looked from picture to picture and gazed at the image of the man in each of them. "They are the same man each time."

"Can't be Billy-boy your eyes must be playing tricks on you," Richie tried to rationalise and he too found himself looking from picture to picture. He swallowed harshly when he couldn't come up with a better excuse for what Bill was saying.

"It is the same man," Mike agreed but he too couldn't come up with a plausible reason why it was the case. The photo's spanned some 150 years together in total - how was it possible that it was the same man - maybe they were all relatives that just looked very much alike. The group of friends considered that highly unlikely as well.

"It's not a man," Bill summoned the courage to say. He didn't know why, but each time he looked at the photos, the only image he saw was that of a man dressed in a funny clown costume. Like the man who had been invading his dreams every night since Georgie's death.

"_IT_!" he said to the group, giving the man a title. Just as he said the word though, his nightmares started to become reality as the pages of the photo album began turning over and over on their own at a fast pace. For a few seconds, the children just watched in horror as the pages moved without any assistance from Mike.

Mike had not been in the company of this group many times, but he too had some deep held secrets about monsters he had seen and strange things that had been happening that he couldn't quite explain. This was turning out to be another one of those times.

The episode seemed more real to Bill than any of them. He had seen this exact same thing happen before and that was he voiced to the others now.

"T-t-that's w-w-hat happened i-in G-Georgie's r-room," he stammered out, stumbling over nearly every word out of the fear that he felt rising within him but couldn't stop no matter how hard he tried.

The SeaQuest group couldn't quite see what the other children were seeing, but they could see the pale face of Lucas and the loud audible gasps from the other children at something terrifying in front of them.

They moved from where they were to behind the group - not being able to be seen of course. They could scarcely believe themselves that the pages of the book were turning on their own.

The pages finally stopped turning and the page settled on a photograph from about 1870 when there was a row of shops along Witcham street near where the barrens was now. This time the pages didn't just move - the people inside the photograph began coming to life as well.

Beverley had to put her hand over her mouth to prevent herself screaming at the scene in front of her. The people in the photograph were moving as though they were going about their everyday lives. There was an eerie sounding tune playing that seemed to get louder and louder the more they stared intently at the page.

Kristin and Commander Ford were shaking their heads with disbelief. Out of the group, they were probably the two most to doubt any such thing if they didn't see it first hand for themselves. Problem was they were seeing it first hand right at this very minute but they didn't have any explanation for it.

As the photo continued moving, a man began moving down the street on a pair of stilts. Like a circus performer. He was wearing a clown's funny baggy clothing and juggling some balls whilst walking along.

All of a sudden the clown on the stilts seemed to stop half-way through his routine and look towards the children on the other side of the book. A god-awful roar came from the book.

Bill and the others could no longer hold in their panicked screams at the sound. Lonnie and Tony had also let out screams of fright at the sound - a little embarrassed for themselves, but dreadfully afraid of what this horror was that was haunting Bill and his friends.

Now the clown was running down the street, running and then scaling one of the old-fashioned lamp posts until he was right up close to the group so they could see his garish features and hideous smile.

The picture had been black and white before it started moving, but now the clown was right in front of them in full-living colour. To much colour and life for them.

"I'll kill you all," Pennywise said to the group. Each of the children was sure he was looking directly at each of them as he uttered the deadly threat.

"I'll drive you nuts, I'll drive you crazy and then I will kill you all," the clown repeated.

The children were now attempting to pull back from the photo album and huddling into each other for protection. Their fear was so strong that they were paralysed from just getting up and running away from the clown.

"I am your worse dream come true. I am everything that you ever were afraid of," the clown hissed through yellowed and stained fangs.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" it shouted a third time and in an even more frightening gesture, stuck it's white gloved hand out the page itself towards the children as if to try and grab at one of them and drag them back into his domain.

Mike could take no more after that and threw the book away from the group on the muddy ground so it was closed. Beverley could no longer hold back the sobs she had been holding in from her own fear and buried her head against Ben's ample shoulder to hide her tear stained face.

Eddie was trying in vain to hide behind Richie from the ghoulish clown, reaching instantly for his asthma inhaler to try and calm down his fear before he brought on an attack. His breathing was already sounding a lot harsher.

Stan was sitting on the ground with his hands over his ears in an attempt to ignore what he was seeing and hearing as real. He was a logical person and tried to see the rational side of anything that seemed unusual or abnormal. But what he had just seen defied all the rules as well as scared the hell out of him.

While each of them thought that they might be safer to head for home and deal with what they had seen on their own. They also saw the benefits of sticking together in a group and relying on each other at a time when they all needed it the most.

Lucas found himself being the exception to this rule. The paleness of his face clearly visible to his friends and the SeaQuest crew.

* * *

After a while as they talked about just about everything and nothing, Eddie looked over at Bill who seemed to go silent again over the last half an hour. Instead of looking back with the rest of the group and laughing like the others had been, Lucas had moved about 5 meters away from the others and was now sitting on his own, looking back over a different part of the Barrens.

He looked to be lost in thought. Eddie wondered if he should prod his friend into telling them all what was bothering him. He didn't like it when Bill was this quiet. Bill was the one that everyone looked up to.

Bill was the one everybody turned to when something started to go wrong. There seemed no better time than now to look towards him as their leader and expect him to tell them what to do. Problem was Lucas didn't know himself what to do. Fear had taken away all the thinking ability he had right now. His thoughts started to drift back over the last few months before Georgie's death and no doubt the beginning to this whole set of nightmares.

"C-c-can I tell you all something?" Lucas finally said, just loud enough for them all to hear.

Bill didn't know how much longer he could hide the monsters and the dreams he had been having from the rest of his friends. Sooner or later it had to start showing on his face didn't it? The boy ran a worried hand down the length of his face as he tried to muster up the courage to continue what he was about to say.

"Sure, Big-Bill, what's on your mind," Richie asked. This time there wasn't the slightest sign of a joke in his voice. He knew that he and all of his friends were well past joking for the rest of today.

"I-I-If y-y-ou g-guy l-laugh, I-I s-sw-wear I-I w-w-will never t-t-alk to any o-of you e-e-ver a-gain," Bill warned.

"We won't laugh, Bill," Ben answered as he looked at the others for their agreement. None of them got too close to Bill just yet. They sensed that whatever it was he had to say was going to be difficult enough without them getting in his personal space.

As his group of friend listened, Bill took the best part of twenty minutes to tell the others about how the photograph album in Georgie's room had done exactly the same as the book laying on the ground right now.

They all silently held their breaths as they heard Bill tell them about the photograph of his younger but dead brother wink at him and then how the photo album had begun to bleed right in front of his eyes after he had thrown it across the other side of the room.

He also told them about the dreams he had been having about Georgie coming back and telling him that it was all his fault that he had died and how at times Georgie appeared to be turning into the clown they had just seen threatening to kill them.

Bridger and the SeaQuest crew had never heard any story so heart felt and sorrowful in their lives. They had seen the photo album bleed like Lucas explained and had seen the clown just now. But they had been unable to see the nightmares in his head at night that he wrestled with or the thoughts of self-retribution and guilt that had obviously been plaguing the boy since his brother's unanswered death.

By the time he was finished, tears were running down his face, both out of grief over his brother as he remembered yet again, and also out of his frustration of not being able to deal with these feelings and images himself. For having to share such horrid memories with others even though they were his friends.

Eddie was also crying slightly after listening to Bill. He hadn't suspected that his friend the mighty Bill had been having such vivid nightmares and horrible thoughts about his brother.

Eddie had to admit that he had never heard Bill stutter so badly at any one time than he had just now telling his story. There were quite a few times were words were attempted and just left out because he would never have gotten over the hurdle. Their omittance didn't detract any from the whole picture Bill was trying to depict.

After seeing the photo album Mike had brought along, not one of them had disbelieved his tale. How could they, they too had seen the same thing happen. Maybe not the blood or the ghost of Little Georgie Denbrough. But all of them had experienced similar nightmares and sights themselves that they still had yet to share.

And over the next few minutes that is exactly what happened. Eddie found himself telling Bill and the others about his experiences at 29 Neibolt Street. Bill and Richie looked at each other before Richie told their tale of he and Bill also visiting 29 Neibolt Street and almost not coming out alive to tell the tale.

Lucas now got up on his feet and walked about twenty feet away from the rest of the group towards the far edge of the puddle. From where he was standing, there was a slight echoing effect when speaking due to the sloping group on either side back up to Jackson street and the main highway on the other side.

The small group had been momentarily lost in their own thoughts when Bill began shouting up towards Jackson street at somebody they couldn't see.

"You killed my brother George you bastard," Bill said out loud.

"I want to kill it," Bill now admitted as he wrapped his arms around himself, letting his tears of frustration freely fall down his face in front of his friends. His emotions and feelings were just to raw to ignore any more. He couldn't do this on his own anymore.

"I swear to God I want to kill it," Bill repeated.

"Help me," he pleaded, looking towards the group.

"Help me."

Beverley was the first one to go to Bill and show her willingness to help by putting a supporting arm around him. It didn't take long for the other five to join the group and seven children stood in a small huddle, with their arms around each other, vowing that they would somehow ward off any monsters.

Trouble was did they really know what the monster was...

to be continued...

JULES


End file.
